CROWD

Gisèle Vienne, Austrian-French expert for emotional abysses and ecstatic states, places the audience in a trance for the festival closing with her largest dance piece to date: CROWD. Here 15 youths are celebrating in the turmoil of an emotional rave party. Based on film techniques, their movements are expertly slowed down to slow motion, stylized, broken up, reversed or repeated the way animated GIFs are. Hypnotized by a light that constantly remodels the bodies, our attention is directed towards each individual member of this fleeting micro-society. In the rush of the rhythm of music and bodies, subtle moments of love and intimacy are mixed in - but also aversion and violence. Fates clash, whereby one person hugs another, rejects or supports them. The audience is thus drawn into an almost hallucinogenic experience. Emotions are literally running high and telling stories that the author Dennis Cooper wrote as a subtext under Gisèle Vienne’s powerful language of images and bodies. The playlist with rave-culture classics is provided by Peter Rehberg, the pioneer of free experimental computer music who died unexpectedly in 2021. CROWD is a contemporary and simultaneously cathartic and archaic dialogue with our inner selves. An overwhelming theater experience!