ZAGREB DANCE COMPANY /LAURA ARIS

Geometry of Breath / Geometry Daha

We are nature, our fingertips pointing towards portals of the spiritual, the incorporeal, the infinite.
We are the collective body, an ancient body, a heavenly body.
We are permeable. Eternally becoming.
We are.

We are together now, creating a new code, a cryptic, spontaneous, and absolutely necessary code. The perpetual movement and the ever-connecting energy oscillates, rises, and falls...It expands and contracts, flows, curls, and collides.

Scientific data became the catalyst for extending the habits of the imagination into poetic realms. Modern science tells us of an extraordinary range of interrelationships. Now more than ever, it is clear that we are parts of a whole. We cannot ignore the fact that the sea around us is the same, and our foundations are shared. As far as long as there is Us.

Laura Aris

GEOMETRY OF BREATH

Direction & choreography: Laura Arís Álvarez
Created with and performed by Margareta Firinger, Andreja Jandrić, Luna Lilek, Endi Schroetter, Linda Tarnovski, Karlo Topolovec
Asst. Choreographer: Petra Valentić
Original music: Nenad Kovačić, Miro Manojlović
Texts: Mauricio Guzmán "Partículas (Antología)",  Luka Bosanac "Fairytale teasing”, Laura Arís Álvarez
Costume design: Ana Fucijaš
Costume design asst: Tina Spahija
Light design: Saša Fistrić
Photography: Jelena Janković
Graphic design: Vladimir Končar
Costume sewing: Božena Spahija
Dramaturgical support: Katarina Pejović
Translator: Mirna Čubranić

Production and artistic direction of ZPA Petra Glad Mažar, Petra Valentić
Public relations: Ivana Lulić
Production: Zagrebački Plesni Ansambl / Zagreb dance company
In coproduction: ZKM - Zagrebačko kazalište mladih / Zagreb Youth theatre
Partner: Mediteranski Plesni Centar / Mediterranean Dance Center
With the support: Grad Zagreb - City of Zagreb, Ministarstvo kulture i medija RH - Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, A/CE Acción Cultural Española / PICE

Special thanks to La Faktoria Choreographic Center, Pamplona.

Opening night: September 10th, 2022.

“The final piece that they showed to the Zagreb audience can be "read" on countless different levels, from the fact that geometry is literally present in everything, which is clearly reminded of the light created by Saša Fistrić all the way to which human emotions intertwine and melt, which is excellently shown by the stage use of costumes of the dancers, the costume designer Ana Fucijaš created hoodies in which two moving bodies fit at the same time. And just like in dramatic performances, for which the old Chekhov rule applies, "the gun that hangs on the wall in the first act must fire in the last”, here too the stones that the dancer throws on the stage in the first scene of the work at its end offers interesting scenes in which the arrangement of the stones that the dancers place around the scene recalls rows of soldiers, but also children in a joyful procession of flowers, showing that everything in life is limited by the way we humans use it, just as the associations to what we see are conditioned by our experiences, but also by the moment in which we live.”

Bojana Rodovič, VL hrvatska 12/09/2022

“Human existence on the Earth is marked by paradox from the beginning to the end. We live as if we would live forever, side by side with the fact that death is inevitable. We are all unique and at the same time a part of an inseparable whole. The more we know, the more we are aware of how little we know. True freedom demands discipline. We bring children into this world knowing it is full of threats to life. The biggest fall can bring about the greatest ascent. Pledged to gravity, we aim at the-heights.

Paradox is also one of the basic laws of nature. Isn't the spring awakening and growth the biggest miracle we witness every year anew? For how is it possible that a thin, fragile leaf of grass can break through the ground which is hardened to concrete by winter and cold? And grow up into the air, defying gravity? How is it possible that something so fragile can conquer something that is seemingly immeasurably stronger than itself? It is a true miracle. But what is the outcome of that magnificent feat? The leaf of grass is fragile and vulnerable to external attacks. Its life can end at any moment.

Paradox is at the root of every existence.

Hence the GEOMETRY OF BREATH. Seemingly two incompatible terms, but at the same time the basic elements of life. Geometry is in everything: in the light, in all animals and plants, in our anatomy and the universe itself. Breath is the source of all living things; prana, the life force of energy.

Bodies in movement prove that paradox at every moment. Fed by breath, they constantly establish constellations: water and air currents, vibrations of the ground, diffusion of light, rotation of planets. Energy flows in countless different shapes.

Like every community, bodies in movement always learn anew how to be themselves and how to be together. To penetrate the secret of fractal, the idea that the smallest particle has the same qualities as the biggest whole. Bodies in movement always present a possibility of synergy; a possibility to create a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Bodies in movement are like a sand mandala. When they reach the point of synergy, the point of creating a greater value, they fall apart and continue their journey towards a new synergy. What remains is in the eye and the memory of the observer, inevitably changed by that experience.”

Katarina Pejović

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