Dandelion

Ermira Goro and Hannes Langolf on stage together for the first time as creators. Of course, they share a common past as performers with the distinguished choreographer Lloyd Newson and his internationally renown company, DV8 Physical Theatre. But this new creative meeting does more than simply reshuffle their earlier work in the sphere of choreographic research. In Dandelion, they set out both to explore in depth the affinities between the performance codes of theatre and dance and to transmute their stage experience into a new and personal performance idiom. Combining their individual styles and exchanging materials and experiences, they produce an amalgam of physical virtuosity and meditative poetry. For this production, they are joined by five talented performers whose work strengthens the case for an abstract choreography thick with symbolism.

In an era in which the body is becoming the primary field of negotiation for both concepts and identities, the two artists explore its complex ambiguities. The serried ranks of must-dos and must-haves imposed by our contemporary way of life provides the spark for a reworking of collective memory and personal experience. The ultimate goal? To portray a person torn between the iconic and the real as they are gradually alienated from every aspect of their personal and social life. If every attempt at returning to an “analogue past” seems anachronistic or destined to fail, the body may well be the final link with which we can resignify our relationship with the everyday and with others. The stage operates allusively, both as a mirror held up to society and as a reflection of a primeval world in which collectivity and inter-personal contact are preserved intact.