Earplugs are offered in the cloakroom; three turquoise walls receive the audience; conventional lights off, followed by strong sounds. The vibrations are sudden, like a shower that makes your thoughts flee and leave you motionless, yet in expectation, for what may arrive to your senses. A soft violin stops the chaotic soundscape, turning the atmosphere into the perception of a memory. Five bodies hang from harnesses: Elena Praastrup Nielsen, Paulína Šmatláková, Lorenzo Giovannetti, Michal Heriban, and Hikaru Osakabe, all of them right-angled.         

The lights dye the stage from turquoise into green, the performers’ red outfits make for a significant eerie contrast. Perfectly in shape, they perform their movements aimlessly to a metric-counted tempo. There is an extreme necessity for stiffness; their centres are contracted, and their backs strain in a line. The humanoids have a neutral face, yet hold a glimpse of tension. Their gaze goes nowhere far, a metre or two in front of them. Flawlessly synced with the beep of the drone music, they repeat a sequence for several minutes with no remorse.

After a while, the dynamic changes. A video of a child playing lovingly with his mother is screened above the walls on stage. The child plays on a swing, a universal symbol of childhood. The distance between humans and humanoids is confronted. The flesh on stage claims to be driven by photovoltaic energy, while the projection — pixel cells — attempts to connect to the warmth of summer days that only skin remembers.

“The sun is coming”, says a voice in off, warning the anthropomorphic robots to recharge. The beeps continue in an offbeat loop, like a modern Morse Code message, followed by another projection of a childhood memory. This time, the outcome is the performers’ reconnection with their humanity. The dancers clap together and develop a common rhythm. They jump, they shake, and they smile at one another. Their eyes go out into the audience. I suddenly feel like I’m back in a theatre. They interact, communicate, see each other and act collectively whilst carrying a soft line of individuality within themselves. The beeps start again. The humanoids turn back into cabled-charged machinery. Only one of them maintains the rhythm, its humanity.

I question myself: Why do dancers need to connect to a cable to receive energy? Why can’t they do it as humans? What’s the reason for making them different to us? The metaphor seems as clear as it is dark. A song twists the plot into an absurdist happening. The dancers lip sync “I want to be, I want to be just like the sun”. The rigid humanoids seem to be mere choreographic tools. Materials or bodies? I see them sharp and energetic, but are they here to amuse us, to make us feel alienated? Exhausted? Sick or surprised?

The lack of dramaturgy in the performance seems to mirror our times. Humanity is becoming machinery working towards the future with no apparent intention, driven by the practice of so-called “progress”. A third video is shown. There is a swing but no child. Tired of seeing reality through shadows, the humanoids leave the stage as humans left the cave in Plato’s allegory. One by one, dancers show a little of their persona. Some appear astonished, holding an uncertain yet hopeful half-smile; others leave with coldness on their faces. One of them remains inside the walls. Will he never meet the sun? He is quiet, sitting still in the darkness.

The publicity poster’s description read “Slunce, a dance sci-fi about humanity in a world without people. The end of the world which you should experience.” I find science fiction a polemic genre to explore in dance, mainly because I believe dance to be the most intimate way of communicating. Certainly, the balance between the undeniable expression of a human body and the suppression of emotions that the performers had to incarnate limited the infinite ways of being on stage. As a result, the performance could afford to convey a concept but not touch the audience. Should I or should I not experience this? It is irrelevant. I take the little I can, seeing that the human spirit lives through movement.

 

Written from the night of the second premiere, October 11, ARCHA+, Prague.

 

Slunce
Direction, Choreography: Jana Burkiewiczová
Concept: Jana Burkiewiczová, Tomáš Luňák, Jiří Macek
Music: Jiří Konvalinka
Scenography, costumes: Marek Cpin
Light Design: Pavla Beranová
Projection Direction: Tomáš Luňák
Projections: Michaela Karásek Čejková
Animation, Editing: Tomáš Hájek
Assistant Choreographer: Paulína Šmatláková
Performers: Lorenzo Giovannetti, Michal Heriban, Hikaru Osakabe, Elena Praastrup Nielsen, Paulína Šmatláková
Premiere: 11. 10. 2024