Eyes in the Colors of the Rain

With the body as their Alpha and Omega, Linda Kapetanea and Josef Fruček’s every choreographic endeavour sets out to explore their personal style in movement. Wanting more than the logic of a strictly dance idiom, they focus on what can be expressed through movement and the illumination of their inner, emotional world through theatricality and instinctive on-stage communication.

The company’s codes of movement are thus the result of the exchange and merger of material from sources as disparate as the martial arts, acrobatics and contemporary dance. Their work is clearly not limited to the on-stage act. Searching for dramaturgical underpinnings in every new work they create (this time in collaboration with Hildegard De Vuyst), they grapple with the crisis of identity facing a society that seeks constancy but whose safety limits have changed.

How can Man navigate the (self) destructive whirlwind of thought and become his own master once more? Starting from this ideological position, the company returns to the human dimension of things and eavesdrop on the body to redefine their position “in a moment of profound reflection on reality”. Thus, although risk and hi-voltage movement remain at the epicenter of RootlessRoot’s work, it is now imbued with a more qualitative spirit which introduces gradations into the stylistic variations encountered during their performances. Frequently, the convulsive on-stage action is now complemented by tenderness as bodies succumb to decay and everything reverts to inwardness—an absolutely and necessarily human aspect of existence.

The music, and set design, as well as the lighting design—the result of the group’s collaboration with Vassilis Mantzoukis and Jukka Huitila. Respectively—are central to the work: active elements of the performance, they magnify the action, imbue the movement with a new dynamism and highlight the drama without exaggerating it.