Premiered in February 2024 at Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, Beautiful Failure was choreographed and designed by Alan Lucien Øyen in close collaboration with co-choreographer Daniel Proietto. Performed by the theatre’s ensemble, the work draws on Øyen’s cinematic language of theatre, combining original German texts with physical theatre and dance. Using elements sourced from the theatre’s fundus, mixed with new sets designed by Øyen, the stage became a filmic landscape where fragments of past and present, fiction and reality, continuously shifted.
With Alan Lucien Øyen, Pfalztheater catapults straight into the Champions League of international dance theatre.
Beautiful Failure continues Øyen’s exploration of cinema as a metaphor for the way we stage and remember our lives. Built from personal experiences sourced in collaboration with the ensemble, the work layers text, movement, and theatre into a mosaic of memory and imagination. Performed in German, the text unfolds alongside choreography and physical theatre, creating a cinematic flow where scenes shift like film sequences — duets, monologues, and ensemble moments weaving between intimacy and distance.
It quickly becomes clear how impressive this ‘beautiful failure’ is — a sad, honest piece about lost childhood and painful memories.
As both choreographer and set designer, Øyen shaped the production’s theatrical world. Objects and fragments from Pfalztheater’s storerooms were combined with newly designed sets, forming a mutable environment where spaces of recollection appeared and dissolved. Music, light, and language combined with dance to create a dreamlike atmosphere in which every element carried emotional weight.
Praised for its poetic honesty and theatrical precision, the work was shortlisted for the Faust Prize 2024. Critics highlighted the ensemble’s presence and the seamless integration of disciplines:
The interplay of image, music, light, language, and dance functions flawlessly.
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