YOUR GHOSTS, MY SHADOWS
Premiere: September 14, 2025, Komedie Theatre, Prague
The production Your Ghosts, My Shadows is a unique collaboration between Emilie Leriche and Pascal Marty and the Lenka Vagnerová & Company ensemble. Together with music composed by Wolff Bergen, this exceptional trio created an authentic and compelling production for six core company dancers.
"As a departure arises, one question persists: Why leave?
To which we respond, but why stay?
Regardless of choice the result is inevitably that of two realities: The “here” and the “there”, us caught in between. As present in whatever space we occupy, as the spaces we could have been but are not. At times absent to the physical bodies trying to hold us in the now, as part of us has stayed with those we’ve let go.
Departures are funny like that - they test the limits between these two sides, bending their very fabric, blurring lines and stories and time. They make us wonder how it might be over there, projecting us into these other realities. As fictional as it may seem, this “other side” is a tangible space. Imagining what’s right beyond the edges of our present moment, we manage to exist in these other places by proxy but without ever being there. It’s not -of course- all fantasy, as reality is precisely what motivated us to leave, or sometimes to stay. Places and situations may drive us in or out, but their people make us linger… It is of these places that this work intends to speak: the ones we have no choice but to return to.”
Pascal Marty & Emilie Leriche
Emilie Leriche: “We’re constantly leaving somewhere. It’s part of our career — it asks us to leave, to part ways, to let go of people we’ve been truly close to for years. So I think our first thought was to communicate through time, across the distances between people who were once so deeply rooted in our lives. With that came shadows and ghosts — and the question of how they still affect us. Gradually, from our thoughts, the setting of a single family emerged, and we came upon letters we never sent to anyone and messages we never received. We arrived at things we wanted to say but couldn’t. We remembered the people in our lives and our long-past relationships with them — family, romantic, friendly… All of this offered us many perspectives on distance — on drifting apart.”
Pascal Marty: "In her part, Emilie talks about her past, and I deal with her present In fact, we move forward and backward, we are constantly between what has already passed and what constitutes the present And even though we decided on this type of intertwined collaboration, we each retain our own creative and choreographic identity."
"Yet suddenly, during the first roughly twelve hours, we looked at each other and nodded in agreement – that is Mom and the others We didn’t have to search for the representatives of our characters; they simply came to us That was absolutely amazing."
Events in Culture, Czech TV art, report
Modern Theatre / Hana Dolejší Lehečková, Lenka Vagnerová / Prague City Theatres
Emilie Leriche: "It was wonderful to come into the studio on the first day and watch how each of them naturally assumed one of the characters – as if we had known it all along I have a very vivid memory of Pascal and me standing at the front, watching the company at work, holding onto each other, whispering and smiling – already seeing clearly how the story we had spent so much time on was unfolding before us Working with these artists, as well as with Lenka and her entire team, has been an incredible joy for us."
Pascal Marty: "In this sense, it is everyone’s story – whether epic or intimate – leaving is Humanity’s shadow, our shadow I see this piece as a way to reconnect with one another, and I hope the audience walks out having experienced that."
"Despite the extensive preparation Emilie and I did before starting the creation – almost two years of work – some of my strongest ideas emerged directly in the studio I feel we came into the process with a lot to offer, yet what we received from the dancers far exceeded what we had brought ourselves It was a humbling lesson in generosity and listening – an artistic dialogue that never stops and takes you on an unexpected journey."
Credits:
Written and Directed by: Pascal Marty & Emilie Leriche
Choreography: Pascal Marty & Emilie Leriche in collaboration with the dancers
Sound Design / Original Score: Wolff Bergen
Costume Design: Simona Rybáková (creative collaboration Barbora Kotěšovcová)
Light Design: Karel Šimek
Performers: Adam Sojka, Leo Terris, Lukas Lizama Garrido, Jana Hampl Maroušková, Paula Morejón García, José Guzmán
Lights: Jan Hugo Hejzlar
Sound: Eva Svobodová
Production: Soňa Hájek Bartková
Costumes / props / stage production: Monika Jonášová
Foto: Vojtěch Brtnický
Staged at: LV&C_STUDIO8, Komedie Theatre
Producer: Lenka Vagnerová & Company
Co-production: Prague City Theatres
Supported by: Ministry of Culture, City of Prague
Reviews:
“There is a touch of melancholy, solitude, and a hint of anxiety, but also a great deal of beauty, courage, closeness, and hope — the hope that even at a distance there is still time to say everything that truly matters.”
Jana Bohutínská / Reflex
“It is precisely through its creative diversity that a compelling, visually striking display of characters unfolds, reaching an almost dramatic dimension — not expressively affective, but palpably intimate: outwardly understated and inwardly harrowing.”
“The performance became a multilayered event, and observing it was a process of immersion, or alternatively a voluntary, active resistance to a wave of emotions.” Hana Strejčková / Opera +
“An emotive dance piece about departures, returns, and unsent letters… Every movement is as precise as the imprint of a memory; nothing here is superfluous. The music and scenography underscore the tension of fleeting moments, while brief dialogues open up new layers of the story. All the dancers are strong and well-balanced; together they form a compact whole that fully absorbs the audience. The production undulates like breath — alternately pausing and flowing again. Your Ghosts, My Shadows seeps under the skin and transforms into a quiet, deeply personal experience.” Kateřina Vodáková / i-divadlo
“In the production Your Ghosts, My Shadows, Pascal Marty and Emilie Leriche bring to life the space between life and death as a place where past trauma transforms into present corporeality.”
“The mature performative work of the dancers of Lenka Vagnerová & Company lends their characters a depth that ordinary expressive movement simply cannot reach.”
“Together with the performers, Marty and Leriche create a language of physical theatre that is quiet yet profoundly eloquent.” Tomáš Kubart / Taneční zóna
Creators:
Emilie Leriche and Pascal Marty are exceptional artists and choreographers, deeply committed to dance and theatre and with significant experience in dance film, writing, and dramaturgy. They have worked alongside and collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Marina Mascarell, Yoann Bourgeois, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Alan Lucien Øyen, Damien Jalet, Sharon Eyal, Paul and Christine Blackman, Club Guy & Roni, Roy Assaf, Ohad Naharin, and others.
Emilie Leriche is an independent performer and creator working between Gothenburg, Sweden, and Paris, France. From 2017 to 2021, she danced with GöteborgsOperans Danskompani under the artistic direction of Katrín Hall. Before moving to Sweden, she spent four seasons with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, where in 2015 she was awarded the Princess Grace Foundation Dance Fellowship. As a choreographer, she has created works for Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, Nederlands Dans Theater II as part of the Up & Coming Choreographers project organized by Korzo and NDT, as well as for Whim W’Him in Seattle and the dance company of the St. Gallen Theater.
Pascal Pierre Laurent Marty received his dance education at the Conservatoire National de Montpellier and professional training at Sup.1, Ecole de Danse de Genève. From 2009 to 2010, he performed with Ballet Junior de Genève under the direction of Sean Wood and Patrice Delaye. He then spent the next three years with Saarländisches Staatstheater, and from 2013 to 2022 he was a member of GöteborgsOperans Danskompani.
Wolff Bergen is a French composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer currently living in Sweden. He began releasing his works in 2019 and quickly established close collaborations with contemporary dancers on theatre and film projects. His work is primarily based on experimentation — he strives to create something different each time, learning new instruments, building his own, or recording sounds from his surroundings to transform them into music. He has composed music for institutions such as: Baryshnikov Arts Center, Lincoln Center, 92NY, GöteborgsOperan Orsolina 28
photo: Vojtěch Brtnický
Rehearsal photos by Patrik Borecký
