"The Triadic Ballet" has written dance history. With visionary power, this work of the century by Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943) has realigned the basic coordinates of dance.
The choreography and its legendary costumes have inspired generations of artists to this day. The original choreography has not been preserved. The iconic choreographer Gerhard Bohner (1936-92), together with the composer Hans-Joachim Hespos (born 1938), commissioned the Akademie der Künste Berlin-West to reconstruct the ballet in 1977. Ivan Liska and Colleen Scott rehearsed it for the Bavarian Youth Ballet in 2014.
The libretto shows 12 characters in 18 costumes. Oskar Schlemmer orientated himself on the history of dance and theatre and shows cheerful-burlesque moods with artificial people, allusions to classical ballet as well as mystical-fantastic mask dances. Schlemmer was a painter, sculptor, dancer, choreographer, director, teacher and poet. His special achievement was the renewal of the human image after the horrors of the First World War. The adherence to a "purified artificial figure" remains an important message of his work.
Ivan Liska and his wife Colleen Scott belonged to the original cast of Gerhard Bohner and danced the piece between 1977 and 1989 in 85 performances in 32 different theatres in Europe, North America and Japan.