The materiality of the cube – (de)construction of a dwelling
CUBE AS A HOPE “for what is always already there”
(2020 – 2024)
In our new stage work, we would like to use theatrical apparatus to create an environment where all these values and attitudes toward the territory, locality, ecology of habitation, and porosity between private and public, could be explored in an intricate choreography of bodies challenged, (un)framed and ultimately held by the cubic construction in the making.
The immateriality of the cube – sounding the spirit of the void
Although a concrete structure, the cube is also just an indication, an underpinning of the mobile and intangible life force that is residing in and passing through it. The nature of this life force is transitory and immaterial yet its expression is conditioned by the materiality of the embodied behavior. Its field is generated through the activities of the (human and non-human) bodies that are putting themselves in relation, simultaneously challenging and supporting one another in their mutual doing.
The life force created in-between bodies is at all times in a process of generating its own sounding while becoming a dance where subjects and objects are joyously exchanging positions. It is the mutuality of this sounding and the dance emerging along with it which is the real substance of what is holding us and the world together. Seen in such a light, apart from being a scaffolding, the cube is, more importantly, an instrument; and our existence (in relation to it) is a performative musical event. Or is it the other way around? Who is playing whom and what comes first – sound or the body given to it?
We intend to explore this conundrum and find a resting place, dwell calmly inside of its paradox. Because, for those of us whose existence is marked by displacement, home is not a territory but a spiritual event, constantly shifting ritualistic gesture that moves energies and engender new positions. How can we inhabit such a gesture without being driven to exhaustion, how can we rest inside its delocalized restlessness? How can we live our life on the move, work our way through it without labouring to it? The provisional answers to these ancient questions belong to a domain of utopian imagination. Thus our performative musical event on another level is nothing else but a techno-shamanistic play with a future we do not know yet.
Choreography, concept & performance: Anna Mesquita & Leandro Zappala
Dramaturg: Igor Dobričić
Light design: Pol Matthé
Sound advisor: Fabrizio Rossi Giordano
Production: QUARTO & Nordberg Movement
Made possible with support by the Swedish Arts Council/Kulturrådet, Stockholms Stad & Region Stockholm
Co-production QUARTO & Dansens Hus
Developed in residency at MDT Stockholm
Photo: QUARTO & Pol Matthé