Dresden

Perfection is boring—a view evidently shared by Kinsun Chan. After two seasons, the director of the Semperoper Ballet is presenting a work of his own for the second time: his premiere Parts and Pieces—fittingly staged, like Wonderful World before it, on the smaller stage at the Staatsschauspiel’s Kleines Haus—centers on the Asian technique of kintsugi. In this process, broken porcelain is not restored to a "perfect" state; instead, the fracture lines are embellished with gold dust to highlight imperfection and an appreciation of the past. Christian Bauch embodies these cracks and fractures. A large dark patch over the heart on his white shirt reveals the First Soloist’s wounded state; he clearly has much to process.