LODE DEVOS CHOREOGRAPHY
MASTERCLASS - DANCE PEDAGOGUE
WAITS SONGS
Piruoettes in a glas of whiskey (Klassik.com/march 2009)
The choreographer of the Chemnitz Ballet pulls after the huge success of the Brel evening of last season again a modern songwriter in the centre of his creation. Tom Waits edgy songs where unexpectidly convincing put on stage by an atmospheric stage design and a fresh young company.
Tom Waits is truthfully the “Pierrrot Lunaire” of the 21th century and his songs are the lonely music of all street musicians and bar pianists of the world. Devos has captured this feeling in a wonderful way.
The virtuosity and technical perfection of which the company of Lode Devos has proven it´s capacities over the last years could have prevented this time with his Waits evening. But once again Devos has made the impossible possible and wrote a real “Waits-Ballet”.
PICASSO!
Volkmar Draeger, Lausitzer Rundschau, 13.2.2017
" "Picasso!" begins with a 40- minute presentation of pituresque delicacies, translated in dance (...)(...) movements unify like colours to an artistic unity."
Jürgen Heinrich, Der Märkische Bote, 18./19.2.2017
" (...)In "A picture of Dorian Gray" Devos transported with his unusual poetic interpretation the ballet friends into a sensual magic. This time he surpasses himselve in a astounding image of the creational portrait of a Über-artist like picasso.Bravo! Bravo!(...) Picasso - the Ballet, a gigantic Bildwerk!"
BREL GETANZTE CHANSONS
The smallest common denominator: Love (W. Draeger/ Neues Deutschland/Sept. 2007)
Devos grew up in the Flanders with Brel´s music of which he took 18 strong texts, obstinate music with furious changes of tempi. But the dance is up to it. How sovereign Devos creates tension through the element of opposition is for example shown in “Fernand” where the subject of the ballade is the death of a friend: the dancer interprets in front of décor of passing women, the tragic of an abruptly interrupted live, beaten, carried and loved by his women..
The company defends with engagement and playfulness the “monster” Brel and so the expressive and plastic choreography of Lode Devos who also knows how to stage his songs in a masterly way.
SERENADE/KADDISH
Eros and Jahwe “serenade” and “Kaddish” love and prayer./ Tanznetz.de/Boris Michael Gruhl/February 2010
Ballett Chemnitz opens in Chemnitz the day of Jewish culture with a brilliant Bernstein dance evening.(...) The apparent opposition of the two pieces are being brought to a thrilling symbiosis thanks to the sensitive and with knowledge founded choreography of Lode Devos.(...)
Devos brings with a powerful act this excellent company to a fulminant series of rises and falls, brings them to a powerful, almost military unisono underlined by the costumes of C. Devos. to then again concentrate strongly onto, and bring forward the powerful and individual characters of the dancers.(...)
To bring the spectator the moving power of God and Eros fully at display, an exciting and stimulating interpretation of a jewish prayer, a sensual journey through the labyrinth of emotions and provoke deep shattering to finally free us in a conquering feeling of happiness would for sure have pleased leonard Bernstein himself.
MELINA
Communication is everything ( Junge Welt/Gisela Sonnenburg/Germany/may 2011)
(...)Women make history! When they are strong. When they are like Melina Mercouri, and not like Angela Merkel. Lode Devos, the ballet director in Chemnitz and through his art one of the few ligitimate Béjart successors knows this: for years he lived in Greece. Before that he was dancing for Maurice Béjart, the master of modern ballet. Those roots, Greek tradition and modern ballet erotics are being married in to a explosive expressive mixture.
(...)His new dance theatre evening “Melina Mercouri” has the rumbling power of the origins, popular rhythms and the eye-catching poetics of the genuine sublimated ballet form. It is a modern style extraordinary for Germany...... nothing is false, nothing is artificially dramatised. (...)One must go to Holland or France to encounter comparable quality. (...) This is culture with a big C.