VANISHING ACTS 3 & 4
Act III - The Dreadful Story of Harriet and the Matches
Choreography and Performance: Sanja Tropp Frühwald
Assistant Choreography: Till Frühwald
Text: Sanja Frühwald
"...Well see what a dreadful dreadful thing
The fire has caught her apron string
She burns all over everywhere
She burns her nose and her arms and her hair
‘Til she’s got nothing left to lose
Except her little scarlet shoes..."
Act IV - Flying Robert
Choreography: Sanja Tropp Frühwald
Performance: Till Frühwald
Text: Till Frühwald
"...When the rain comes tumbling down,
In the country or the town,
All the good little girls and boys
Stay at home and mind their toys.
Robert thought: "No, when it pours,
It is better out of doors.
"Rain it did, and in a minute,
Bob was in it..."
Dramaturgy: Mirjam Schmuck (Kainkollektiv)
Music: Damir Šimunović
Costumes and Set Design: Zdravka Ivandija
Assistant Costume Design: Ana Paulić
Light Design: VRUM
Light: Milan Kovačević
Graphic Design: Dinko Uglešić
Production: VRUM
Support: &TD Teatar, tanzhaus NRW
Photography: Pio Rahner and David Mihoci
This performance piece is based on extracts taken from ‘Der Struwwelpeter oder lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder’ (‘Shockheaded Peter’) by Heinrich Hoffmann.
This project was started in 2009 and 2011, and was realised inside the premises of: Tanzhaus NRW, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Liberdance, the Zadar Dance Ansamble and &TD Teatar, as a part of the Choreoroam 2009 Programme and Eurokaz Pogon.Premiere Acts 3&4: January 2012, &TD
TeatarThis project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the Zagreb City Department of Education, Culture and
Sports.
Vanishing Acts endeavours to use the destruction of an individual, the core concept of the theatrical play, as a starting point for research of theatre as a medium. Can an act of destruction or the disintegration of an identity affirm the potential for new development? Dispossessing the body opens up the conduits for infinite narratives.In literal terms, this solo dance performance pieces fuse media performance with theatre, producing disparate conclusions which compel the audience to explore their complex associations and
interconnectivity.Act III is the continuation of the 2009 collaboration with a performer Petra Hrašćanec
which in turn was a variant of Act II.
In Act III, Sanja
Tropp Frühwald addresses these difficulties by utilizing the reverse perspective: the solo performer deals with the remnants and traces that evince the presence of a persona that evanesced prior to the start of the performance. The piece can be seen as a wickedly allegorical detective tale that exposes the crimes of childhood, swaying as it does between the realms of visibility and desire, of the attainable and permissible. The choreographic process is punctuated by attritional motifs of exhaustion (of body, space and ideas) which are iterated throughout the scenes. This repetition of the ‘trauma’ permeates not only through the audience’s perception, but also the media-controlled aspects of the piece: audio, visuals, characters and the abstract dance itself.
The choreographer attempts in Act IV to deal with issues of disorientation and the delineation of territories, fantasizing about freedom and authority, while the body and the identities of the performer distort themselves during the performance. This choreographic process tries to juxtapose a narrative against the attempts to answer the question of what happens when reality loses its intrinsic value, what happens when global structure starts to crumble and gets out of control. Only the strategies of egress will remain.
Vanishing Acts is a mediation on shared moments, concepts, assumptions and conventions, warning that ‘each of us has been ”absolved” – made free – in a way that seem hopeless to those who wish to apply reason to their lives: we are utterly alone’. (Peter Strasser)
