In Conversation with Christian Spuck Choreographer, The Seventh Blue

Can you please describe The Seventh Blue in three words?

Melancholic. The music is beautiful, especially in the second movement. It’s based on a poem by Matthias Claudius that portrays death in a gentle, almost comforting way. The poem has a figure embracing a young girl, the maiden, and guiding her peacefully into another world. It’s very beautiful, but there is also a sense of melancholy that runs through it.

Humorous. Surprisingly there is also some humour throughout. What the dancers do in the third part is very entertaining. It’s a real celebration of life and includes some playful, funny moments.

Elegance. The movement is closely connected to the music. It feels as though the dancers are in both an inner and outer dialogue with each other and with the music itself. The music is performed live on stage with the dancers, creating a kind of question-and-answer exchange between the musicians and the dancers.

You mention the significance of the music, can you talk more about this?

The Seventh Blue is set to Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14, also known as Death and the Maiden. The score takes its name from the poem that inspired it.

Schubert composed it during a period of deep personal struggle, while he was suffering from illness and confronting the possibility of his own death.

The quartet’s movements are deeply emotional and built around a theme that unfolds through a series of seven different variations, each one moving and very beautiful in its own way.

The second movement is especially poignant, capturing the tension between fear and acceptance of death. Here, the lead ballerina performs a continuous sequence of pas de deux with seven male dancers. It becomes one long, flowing passage, symbolising death as both an embrace and a taking away. It is an extremely demanding role: the ballerina is almost constantly on stage, dancing with seven different partners in succession. 

Where does the name The Seventh Blue come from?

The piece features seven couples - seven male and seven female dancers in blue costumes but the title also carries a deeper meaning for me. 

Blue is the colour of distance and the colour of horizons. It can also suggest the idea of death.

The number seven itself is very mysterious. There is something universally symbolic about it. Everyone has some kind of connection to it as it carries a sense of myth and magic. It can also be associated with death. In the second movement, the seven male dancers can be seen either as a representation of death, or as figures who guide and care for the main ballerina.