Luck / Unluck
Orsolina28 Art Foundation is honoured to welcome Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart for a double residency dedicated to the creation of the work “Luck / Unluck”, with world-renowned choreographers Aszure Barton and Hofesh Shechter.
“Luck / Unluck” is a program that promises to leave a lasting gut punch: the choreographic duo is based on striking contrasts and playful tensions, coming together with poetic justice, with Barton taking on the theme of luck and Shechter tackling the unluck counterpart.
In March, the company will come to Orsolina28 to play with Barton. To her, luck is the feeling of being alive: not because life is fair (it isn’t) but because it happened at all. It is wildly improbable that we’re here, that we arrive in bodies we didn’t ask for, thrown into systems already running. And still, we make something. Luck isn’t fair, it isn’t moral, it doesn’t reward virtue, but it gravitates toward movement. So, move.
To create “Luck”, Aszure lives the work, researches, prepares and obsesses, with the dancers as the co-conspirators. She builds a collective forward momentum, each body expanding the field, multiplying the risk, creating more places for luck to land.
A second residency in June will be devoted to Shechter’s creative process. The world premiere of the work will be at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart on June 26, 2026.
Aszure Barton
Aszure Barton is a choreographer and director who has been making work for over 30 years. The U.S. National Endowment for the Arts described it as "watching the physical unfurling of the human psyche." She began tap dancing in Canada at age three and has been creating dances ever since. Her work has been presented at the Palais Garnier, Mariinsky Theater, The Kennedy Center, Studio 54, Lincoln Center, and Sadler's Wells, as well as in exhibitions like the Smithsonian's Cultural Expressions. She has also made work for theater, film, opera, and Broadway. Upcoming projects include collaborations with the Paris Opera Ballet, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and San Francisco Ballet.
In the early 2000s, Barton founded Aszure Barton & Artists | AB&A in New York, reimagining the choreographer–company model as "a mobile home for trusted humans." Through AB&A, she has worked with artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov and Cyndi Lauper, and with companies such as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Nederlands Dans Theater, and Teatro alla Scala, among others. She is Resident Artist at Gauthier Dance | Theaterhaus Stuttgart and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
Her honors include Canada's Arts & Letters Award, joining the company of Margaret Atwood, Karen Kain, and Oscar Peterson, as well as a Bessie Award and recognition as the inaugural Martha Duffy Resident Artist at Baryshnikov Arts. In 2022, the German magazine tanz featured her work in its yearbook category "Most Interesting Choreographer," and she is an Official Ambassador of Contemporary Choreography in Canada. As an educator, Barton is Creative Partner with Boston Conservatory at Berklee and was formerly Artist-in-Residence at USC Kaufman during William Forsythe's tenure as Artistic Advisor. She and her team maintain long-standing collaborations with The Juilliard School, Arts Umbrella, Canada's National Ballet School, and other institutions.
Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart
Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart is a young, dynamic company of 16 highly individual, versatile artists, directed by the dancer, choreographer, musician and charismatic dance ambassador Eric Gauthier. Set up in October 2007, the company established itself in the German dance scene with record speed and has long since become an international brand. The repertoire includes works by Gauthier himself as well as famous contemporary choreographers such as Mauro Bigonzetti, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Marie Chouinard, Sharon Eyal, Andonis Foniadakis, William Forsythe, Itzik Galili, Jiří Kylián, Lightfoot/León, Hans van Manen, Marcos Morau, Ohad Naharin and Sasha Waltz. In addition to the performances at its home base Theaterhaus Stuttgart, the company is busy touring to international dance cities including Toronto, New York, Tel Aviv, Venice, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Monaco, Québec City, Montréal, Berlin and Chicago.
In addition to the “normal” shows, Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart has been committed to a pioneering socio-cultural format from the very beginning: the Gauthier Dance Mobile brought dance to people who cannot come to the theatre themselves and visited institutions such as retirement homes, hospitals or homes for people with disabilities. In 2022, Theaterhaus and Eric Gauthier opened a new chapter in this outreach programme with the MOVES FOR FUTURE initiative. The Gauthier Dance JUNIORS//Theaterhaus Stuttgart inspires enthusiasm for dance in the next generation with numerous performances at schools in the region.