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20 September 2024 @Manillan tehdas, Turku, Finland
Japanese-Hungarian co-production
Rita Góbi’s works are equally marked by brave experimentation and carefully planned choreographies. The salient features of her style are geometry, minimalism, and a drive towards reduction. Her most recent production opens a door onto the world of playful man.
The playing field is animated by the physical presence and interaction of two characters, Ruri and Rita. The playfellows react to each other while engaging in intense action: running, jumping, swimming, being under or above the water. Yet this competition is not about speed or winning. Harmonic or disharmonic responses to the mysterious body signs of the other contestant (fellow human): these are responsible for the sense of competition, these are the real goal of the body contest. This time, the participants contend with their own bodies, rather than with someone else.
“There may be something symptomatic in that the most characteristic feature of the dancing
bodies is the swimming cap, which forms a uniform-regular sphere of the heads and reduces
the individual face to a minimum. A real hit! It reminds me of Oskar Schlemmer’s “artificial
figures”: as if we could see the ironic reflections of the sublime theatrical utopia of the
hundred-year-old Bauhaus in front of Freestyle’s form-changing swimmers. The purist
aesthetics of the constructivist scene and the marionette at the time opposed the
psychologicalism of mind-boggling bourgeois acting - in the name of the future. I can hardly
believe that such a thing would have turned in Góbi Rita's mind But even the pun in the title
could rhyme with the progressive tradition: you move fastest if you are free to choose the
rigor of your style. ”- András Rényi, Színház
Dance: Ruri Mito (JP)/Horváth Attila & Rita Góbi
Choreography: Rita Góbi
Music: Dávid Szegő
Lighting design: Pavla Beranová (CZ)
Lighting technician: Péter Kiss
Dramaturgy: Anna Zsigó
Production assistants: Lena Hashimoto (JP) & Liliána Maros
Creative producer: Ágnes Bakk
Supported by: Budapest Spring Festival, Performing Arts Japan, Creative Europe Programme (i-Portunus), Life Long Burning, Workshop Foundation, Sín Culture Centre, MOHA - Orkesztika Foundation, Ministry of Human Resources, National Cultural Fund, The Saison Foundation.
Venue: Manillan tehdas, Turku, Finland
Date: 20 September 2024
Photo: Péter Peti, Marcell Piti, Bálint Hrotkó
Review about the performance here.