Ivo Van Hove's favorite David Bowie songs

Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane or the Thin White Duke; few artists have reinvented themselves as frequently and as consistently as David Bowie. He composed an estimated 600 songs during his career, influencing entire generations of artists. A concert experience from Bowie’s Station to Station tour also shaped Ivo Van Hove’s vision of musical theatre. The director and artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale still draws inspiration from their collaboration on the musical Lazarus, Bowie’s last major work from 2015.

Rebel Rebel, the opening production of this year’s Ruhrtriennale, also draws on David Bowie’s extensive body of work. In preparation, Ivo Van Hove listened intently to all 27 of Bowie’s released albums. In his personal notes, he shares the songs that mean the most to him, some of which you can expect in Rebel Rebel from 20 August at Jahrhunderthalle Bochum.

A wonderful, poetically beautiful but also darkly desperate song. Typically, Bowie who always loved to balance darkness and hope. The unhappy young girl searches an escape from her home situation in movies, the fantasy she could fly to Mars. Art gives her renewed energy.

 “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the strange“ he sings. The song confronts us with the fact that to live, to really live is to be able to confront the unknown. Life is a journey. It is the song that represents Bowie’s attitude towards life and his life as a musician. To change is to exist.

I LOVE this song. It is loud, it is fast and furious, it is techno, metal punk but also lyrical. It was a collaboration with the fantastic, brilliant and extreme Brian Eno. It is Bowie at his best. A song about life as chaos and how to deal with the chaos and be free. A utopian song.

The opposite of Hallo Spaceboy. Somebody waiting for a train, stranded in the rain early in the morning, trying to escape the past and move on with her/his life and finding the angels of hope. Bowie loved to play this song live. Look at this video to prove it:

This is a beauty. Bowie’s sunny side. Sentiments in the best way possible. Unbelievably poetic even bucolic. Bowie giving us hope for the future. Bowie telling us children, young boys and girls to enjoy the years of being young because once you get older it will be too late. Yes, this song is real beauty full of optimism.

“Look up here I’m in heaven” is the first line of this heartbreaking song that he wrote for the musical Lazarus that premiered a month before his death January 2016. The song was written in August / September 2015 because I asked him to write a song where the situation of the leading character in the musical would be clear so we could understand his inner fights, his existential situation. When I got a demo version played and sung by himself, I immediately sent him a message: “This will be a classic”. It became the song that was played all over the world the day he died. Lazarus is one of  Jesus’ miracles who raises Lazarus from the dead. I am still hoping Bowie will raise from the dead. In a certain way he is still here because his music will be with us forever.