Hopeless. (Revival)
Performative Sound Installation & Tanzperformance · Wiederaufnahme
by
Sergiu Matis
Pastoral poetry from Greek and Roman antiquity is at the base of Sergiu Matis’ performance Hopeless. In an unceasingly warming world, what is left of the idyllic, cultivated nature described in the poems of Theocritus and Virgil? Are the poets perhaps themselves responsible for setting it on fire with their trivial erotic turbulence, and their politicising of landscape? Today, we forge our own pastoral settings out of shreds, fragments and remains, like data from a library of sounds of extinct animals, or old and new translations of the Idylls. A desperate act of putting back together, or franticly trying to conserve what’s left, all the while mourning the losses yet to come. A general sensation of powerlessness transforms us into spectators at a festival of catastrophes and ruination.
The performers in Hopeless. are technologically enhanced nymphs and shepherds that desperately compete to see who can make the audience cry the loudest. The ecology between poetic language and choreography enables words to collide woefully with flesh, and vocal cords to give the tone to motion so that we can shout out loudly, and exorcise all possible dystopian scenarios. Hopelessness is not a state of a paralysis, but a powerful force that moves us to act.
11.12.2021 Haptic Access Tour and live audio description by Lena Michaelis of Gravity Access Services for audience members with visual impairments. The Haptic Access Tour starts at 6pm. Locaton: Uferstudio 5.
By registration only under: anmeldung@tanzfabrik-berlin.de or phone: +49.30.200 592 70
The performers in Hopeless. are technologically enhanced nymphs and shepherds that desperately compete to see who can make the audience cry the loudest. The ecology between poetic language and choreography enables words to collide woefully with flesh, and vocal cords to give the tone to motion so that we can shout out loudly, and exorcise all possible dystopian scenarios. Hopelessness is not a state of a paralysis, but a powerful force that moves us to act.
11.12.2021 Haptic Access Tour and live audio description by Lena Michaelis of Gravity Access Services for audience members with visual impairments. The Haptic Access Tour starts at 6pm. Locaton: Uferstudio 5.
By registration only under: anmeldung@tanzfabrik-berlin.de or phone: +49.30.200 592 70
Sergiu Matis
Sergiu Matis (he/him) is a Romanian choreographer living in Berlin since 2008. He has created dance performances such as «Neverendings» (2017), «Hopeless.» (2019), «Extinction Room» (2019), «UNREST» (2021), «DRANG» (2022) and «Blazing Worlds» (2023). His work has been presented at festivals throughout Europe. Matis' dance practice can be understood as a tireless search through physical and digitalised archives. His performances provoke intense experiences that break with expectations and strive towards a new understanding of dance.
The performance on 12.12.21 unfortunately has to be cancelled!
Concept, choreography: Sergiu Matis | Performance: Martin Hansen, Sergiu Matis, Manon Parent | Text: Sergiu Matis, Mila Pavicevic, based on translations of Virgil and Theocritus* | Composition: AGF aka Antye Greie | Dramaturgy: Mila Pavićević | Species Research, text: Philip Ingman | Set design: Dan Lancea | Costume: Philip Ingman | Light design: Sandra Blatterer, Emma Juliard | Light: Fabian Bleisch | Technical management: Andrea Parolin | Choreografic assistance: Orlando Rodriguez | Production: Anna Chwialkowska | Represented by: Danila - Freitag, Agentur für Performative Künste | Animal sounds courtesy of the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Xeno-canto Foundation.
A Sergiu Matis production | Funded by Wiederaufnahmeförderung, Senate Department for Culture and Europe, coproduced by apap - FEMINIST FUTURE, a project cofunded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union | Supported by DIEHL+RITTER/TANZPAKT RECONNECT, which is funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR initiative.
GRAVITY ACCESS SERVICE / Haptic Access Tour and live audio description supported by DIEHL+RITTER / Tanzpakt Reconnect | funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR initiative.
*Translations of Theocritus and Virgil from: Hine, Daryl (trans.), 1982, Theocritus: Idylls and Epigrams, New York: Atheneum; and Holzberg, Niklas (ed. and trans.), 2016, ‘Bucolica / Hirtengedichte’ in Bucolica, Georgica / Hirtengedichte, Landwirtschaft, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 42–50.
A Sergiu Matis production | Funded by Wiederaufnahmeförderung, Senate Department for Culture and Europe, coproduced by apap - FEMINIST FUTURE, a project cofunded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union | Supported by DIEHL+RITTER/TANZPAKT RECONNECT, which is funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR initiative.
GRAVITY ACCESS SERVICE / Haptic Access Tour and live audio description supported by DIEHL+RITTER / Tanzpakt Reconnect | funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR initiative.
*Translations of Theocritus and Virgil from: Hine, Daryl (trans.), 1982, Theocritus: Idylls and Epigrams, New York: Atheneum; and Holzberg, Niklas (ed. and trans.), 2016, ‘Bucolica / Hirtengedichte’ in Bucolica, Georgica / Hirtengedichte, Landwirtschaft, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 42–50.
