Marta Navaridas
Once upon a Time in the Flames: Our Firebird Ballet
Presented by DER STANDARD
Get us some Igor Stravinsky, but with punk please! Once upon a Time in the Flames: Our Firebird Ballet is a modern fairy tale directed by Marta Navaridas. Using autobiographical stories, she dismantles power structures in the dance world and encourages catharsis through self-empowerment.
What are the experiences from your dance training that have stuck with you? In Once upon a Time in the Flames: Our Firebird Ballet, six performers undergo a cathartic choreography of remembering that liberates and empowers them both individually and as a collective. To the music of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird, the piece starts with the question which ballet the choreographer/dancer Marta Navaridas would choreograph today – after going through years of drilling and bullying in the ballet world. To find an answer, she invited the “brut all stars ensemble” consisting of Veza Fernández, Stina Fors, Lau Lukkarila, Maja Osojnik and Denise Palmieri to share their childhood memories of dance training, drill and fairy tales. This makes Once upon a Time in the Flames: Our Firebird Ballet a modern fairy tale telling the stories of real people who dance to the music of Stravinsky completely without regrets. Marta Navaridas translates the motifs from Russian folklore featuring in the ballet first performed in 1910 – birds, princesses and princes – into a frank, personal and political narrative by six migrants who experience some cathartic self-empowerment, both individually and as a collective, in this punky dance piece.
Marta Navaridas is a native of San Sebastián, Spain. Her interdisciplinary work takes advantage of the body as a key feature to explore ideas that combine the personal and the political. At the age of four, she took up classic ballet as well as Shotokan karate, later studied translation at UPF Barcelona, choreography at AHK Arnhem and physical theatre at HKA Amsterdam. She has created performances together with Alex Deutinger since 2008 and pieces of her own since 2015. In them, she combines text, live music and gestures in unexpected ways, playfully challenging social conventions and habits of perception. Titles include The Battle (2015), I Swear (2017), Onírica (2020), Stomach (2022) and Manifestations (2024). Her work has been shown internationally on stages, in galleries, museums and public spaces. Most recently at brut Wien, Marta Navaridas presented the performance MOTORA in 2023, which was then nominated for the 2023 issue of the Choreographic Platform Austria (CPA). martanavaridas.com
Press:
Von Strumpfhosen und Katharsis – Marta Navaridas im Interview zu Once Upon a Time in the Flames: Our Firebird Ballet
Credits
Concept, directing, choreography Marta Navaridas Text & performance Veza Fernández, Stina Fors, Lau Lukkarila, Marta Navaridas, Maja Osojnik, Denise Palmieri Music Igor Strawinsky Live electronics & sound design Manuel Riegler, Maja Osojnik Costume design Annemarie Arzberger Set design Georg Klüver-Pfandtner Lighting design Christina Bergner Dramaturgy Alex Deutinger Outside eyes Nerea González, Sara G. Novi, Jennifer Weiss Thanks to Alix Eynaudi Production management mollusca productions
Commissioned by steirischer herbst ’24.
A production by steirischer herbst ’24 and Performanceinitiative 22.
Funded by the City of Graz, the Province of Styria and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Housing, Art, Culture, Media and Sport (BMWKMS).
With the kind support of the Spanish Embassy in Vienna.
With the kind permission of UNIVERSAL EDITION, AG, Vienna, in representation of Schott Music GmbH & Co KG, Mainz.
Links & Social
Presented by
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Dates & Tickets
January 2026
€ 22/€ 18/€ 14
€ 22/€ 18/€ 14
€ 22/€ 18/€ 14 * Followed by an artist talk, moderation: Denice Bourbon
€ 22/€ 18/€ 14
€ 22/€ 18/€ 14
brut nordwest
Nordwestbahnstraße 8-10, 1200 Vienna
accessible
Info
On Mon. 26.01., the show will be followed by an artist talk, moderation: Denice Bourbon.
Content notes
In one scene, there is a very subtle use of haze. One scene contains nudity. Recommended from the age of 16 years.
Downloads
Evening programme Marta Navaridas Once upon a Time in the Flames (PDF)
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