Hope: Chiron in Aries, Recital #2 is the second piece of Frédéric Gies´ Chiron in Aries cycle, after 2020’s Warriors: Chiron in Aries, Recital #1. After the dark, almost dystopian world suggested in Warriors, after its sacrificial and wounded dances that evoked struggle and resistance, Hope is an attempt to conjure up a new world from the ashes of a past one.

To a live set by Fiedel, the four dancers engage in vigorous dances. Although these dances can be sometimes reminiscent of existing folk or ritualistic dances and of classic representations of such dances in archeological artefacts and in popular culture, these dances are phantasmic. They are a spell for bringing hope after a disaster, an incantation for summoning up the forces necessary for bringing a new togetherness into form. They emphasize the strength of the collective, especially when the collective is not at the expense of individualities.

In Greek mythology, Chiron was a Centaur raised by Apollo who initiates him to the arts of healing, music and prophecy, which differentiated him from the other violent and unruly Centaurs. Accidentally wounded by a poisoned arrow, he kept a wound that would never heal. In astrology, the minor planet Chiron is the “wounded healer” and represents our deepest wounds and our capacity to heal. The sign Aries represent the ego, our sense of self, our will power, our desire and the warrior within us. In the sign Aries, Chiron addresses our deepest wounds in relation to our sense of self.