Matthaus Passion 2727 by Tamir Ginz

Kamea Dance Company
Matthaus Passion 2727 by Tamir Ginz

2027 marks 300 years since Johann Sebastian Bach’s masterpiece, the St. Matthew Passion, one of the most important and influential works in the history of Western music.

This year, the work comes exclusively to the Israeli Opera in a grand-scale production featuring some 100 artists on stage: 26 dancers of Kamea Dance Company, the Israel Camerata Jerusalem orchestra, the Israeli Vocal Ensemble choir, and solo singers.

Matthew Passion 2727 shifts the action to the year 2727, a thousand years into the future, and explores questions of faith, humanity, guilt, sacrifice and hope. In elegant contemporary dance that feels like a tour through an exhibition of striking images, Ginz turns the story of the birth of Christianity on its head, subversively linking Christian mythology to Judaism and to his own sources of inspiration as a Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors.

In Matthew Passion 2727, choreographer Tamir Ginz offers a bold, powerful, contemporary dance interpretation of Bach’s work. Ginz is only the second choreographer known to have created a full-length ballet based on the St. Matthew Passion, after John Neumeier at the Hamburg Ballet.

Following a three-year creative process, and in collaboration with German music director and conductor Werner Ehrhardt, Bach’s work was reshaped for dance, with a unique musical structure built to serve the choreographic vision.

The work was produced by the cultural department of Bayer Kultur and premiered on a tour of Germany in 2017, earning glowing reviews as a “masterpiece.” Since then, Kamea Dance Company has been invited to perform it at opera houses around the world.

Lighting design by Dr. Yaron Abulafia, costumes by Limor Hershko Dror and set design by Adam Keller come together as a single stage whole, creating a monumental event of the arts. Together they shape a precise, clean visual language that supports the action on stage and highlights the qualities of the work.

Running time: 80 minutes, no intermission
The performance includes full male nudity
Recommended for ages 16 and up

Credits:
Choreography: Tamir Ginz
Music: St. Matthew Passion, Johann Sebastian Bach
Music Director and Conductor: Werner Ehrhardt (Germany)
Israel Camerata Jerusalem
The Israeli Vocal Ensemble
Soloists: Daniel Tilch (Germany), Nitzan Alon, Daniela Skorka, Lidor Mesika
Lighting Design: Dr. Yaron Abulafia
Costumes: Limor Dror
Set Design: Adam Keller