18 May / 7:00 PM / YOUTH THEATRE “NIKOLAY BINEV”
8 DONDUKOV BLV.
(warm up with the audience led by Romantic afternoon artists: 6:00 pm, Youth Theatre)
Verena Billinger & Sebastian Schulz (Germany)
ROMANTIC AFTERNOON*
Concept, choreography: Verena Billinger & Sebastian Schulz
By and with: Jungyun Bae, Ludvig Daae, Julia Blawert/Tümay Kılınçel, Robert Redmer, Juli Reinartz, Uri Turkenich.
“Romantic Afternoon*” was supported by Crespo Foundation, Department for Culture Giessen, van Meeteren Foundation, Hessian Ministry for Science and the Arts. The performance was produced in the frame of FREISCHWIMMER festival 2011 – Neues aus Theater, Performance und Live Art.
The guest- performance is supported by Goethe-Institut Bulgarien and the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN) Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Kisses in public are close, deep, cuddling, fleeting, passionate. We are looking at them and we scrutinize ourselves – they provoke spontaneous empathy, voyeurism, shame, defensive reaction. They affect us, we interpret the poses, assume some feelings. Kisses become signs that we read, but cannot decode. We are only left with speculations about strangers, with physical impression and with our ambivalent reaction. “Romantic Afternoon*” is a choreography for a group of six people, who are constantly kissing. They wrap arms around each other, hold hands, change positions and partners. They use gestures for emotions that do not exist, take on poses and simulate intimacy. They provoke artificial affects and create conditions, void of feelings where nothing is certain. As an excessive machine of expression „Romantic afternoon“ makes use of the mechanisms of the staging and staged public space and asks about the conditions for the possibility of real emotions.
Verena Billinger and Sebastian Schultz studied Applied Theatre Studies and Choreography and Performance at The Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany. Their artistic practice is based on the understanding of the movement as a conveyor and sign of life, with which they can create images, can affect and discover emotional fields of tension. “Romantic Afternoon*”, together with their newer choreography “Violent Event”, are two of their most awarded productions. Since 2015, the duo has received the “Spitzenförderung” of the federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia, a grant to both produce and build up a company structure.
Tickets: 8 / 10 BGN
WITHOUT DISTANCE PLATFORM
Warm up with the audience led by “Romantic afternoon” artists: 6:00 pm, the lobby of the theatre
A post-show talk with the artists moderated by the theatre maker Mladen Alexiev.
Free entrance
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJIaCgU9qMs[/embedyt]