cie. toula limnaios

»what happens between day and night /// twilight (blue hour) in the theater am halleschen ufer. as the night throws its final shadows, the four dancers awaken from their frozen state. spellbound they direct their eyes towards a point somewhere on the horizon, and if it wasn’t toula limnaios, late at night, presenting us with her latest piece of choreography, you might think balanchine had fitted his serenade to changed circumstances. but it’s not tchaikovsky’s melody that rings out, but a yearning fullsome violin sound by ralf r. ollertz, and the denser its structure becomes, the stronger it stimulates the action on the stage. it’s difficult to say exactly what happens between night and day. toula limnaios, who made her home in berlin 3 years ago, is not so easy to grasp, and even the film, which at the end pelts through the entire action once again, does not necessarily make the matter any easier. a deal of experience has hidden itself in the ‘folds of the night’, and whoever dares to peel off their own reality like a leather jacket, will, possibly, in the end understand themself. toula limnaios allows the observer every freedom. her choreography does not serve up banalities to the audience. full of imagination and poetry she strips away layer upon layer of an existence which in the bright spaces of klaus dust finds an extraordinary beauty.« (hartmut regitz, die welt, feuilleton, berlin, 2000)

» nocturnal dances /// in 1997 the cie. toula limnaios moved its base from brussels to berlin on the invitation of the akademie der kuenste. since then it has managed to find its place in this city not only through its extraordinary productivity but also through its artistic profile. with ‘folds of the night’ the company has now presented its third production this year, premiered in the theater am halleschen ufer. the small, aesthetically satisfying gesamtkunstwerk of dance, light, space and music points to a perfect interplay of the sister arts, such as one rarely experiences. the night begins as the day’s uniform (grey rubber jackets) is laid to one side. the bodies are now free of worldly shells and monotone sequences and set out on the search for the self under the protection of blue-grey unlimitedness. four dancers turn into witchlike willo-the-wisps. they jump and hunt, desire and reject – but they fail to find redemption. the night mirrors the day with all its tortures and failures. the nightmarish pressure of the day doesn’t just continue but takes on concrete form for the first time here. even dreaming is a struggle, even sleeping is a work. in order to dance off a little of the burden from the soul. we dream what we are. all of this is choreographed in a lovely synchronicity and dynamism, and danced with lightness and perfection.«  (arna vogel, neues deutschland, 2000)

»dancing the twighlight zone /// dawn. the stage is as if covered in a mist-like veil. the dancers stand before the screen and watch the blue light becoming ever brighter. in their grey costumes they seem like lost figures of the night, shocked by the confrontation with the absurd reality of the day. in her new piece ‘folds of the night’ the greek choreographer and dancer conjures up a space of nothingness, lost between reality and dream. in this world toula limnaios and her dancers move from the intimate loneliness of a couple through feelings of commonality straight to the through to total isolation. the gestures give and take, flow into one another and disappear. it almost seems grotesque when the pair beats each other around the ears and refuses to stop, or when, in a scene reminiscent of pina bausch, the women hold their colourful clothes in front of their chests, without, however, exposing their bodies. ‘folds of the night’ is a symphony full of poetry, in which the dance achieves wonders in harmony with music and light. for one night long, the the cie. toula limnaios manages to turn the stage into a chimera-like moment, an unforgettable dream.« (andrea philippi, urbuz.com, paris, london, berlin, 2000)

»a dry dance /// »since 1997, when toula limnaios moved to berlin with her company founded two years earlier in brussels, she has quickly catapulted herself into the choreographic front line. that earned her funding from the cultural senate. in a leaden light, four figures gaze backwards, motionless, as if caspar david friedrich had composed them into a natural still life. whatever they may expect from their point of view, it doesn’t happen. one roped-up woman can escape, all four pull off their rubber jackets like bothersome shells… the one-hour piece (contains) appealing images, as when bodies like puppets can only be moved by hand impulses, or when the only man holds a bundle of photographic studies of expression like masks in front of his face. ralf r ollertz’ dense sound composition and klaus dust’s atmospheric light remain in positive memories. among the 3 women, the dancing choreographer is the most convincing, and the danish nicolaj jespersen is an asset as the youngest member of the group.« (volkmar draeger, berliner morgenpost, 2000)

»the struggle on the meta-level /// the cie. toula limnaios company gives a modern answer to the question: to be or not to be? with dance, music, film and light it steps over the border between imagination and reality. … the choreographer and cyan have been working together for over a year now and it has proved to be the case that two systems that lie far apart may very well be compatible with each other. limnaios’ ethereal explorations into her own body and the tough technology of cyan have entered into a strange symbiosis, in which the games played between imagination and reality and between genuine image and optical illusion seem to mirror and replicate each other. ‘folds of the night’ is the name of the newest result of this collaboration. the ‘folds’, too, represent a doubling, the purest form of the night. those who have seen how, in ‘vertige’, toula limnaios struggles against cyan’s video images, is swallowed up by them and again and again regains her own corporal reality from them, should picture all of this without any major technological hoo-ha. for since limnaios, who in the past has danced with pina bausch among others, has taken video art on board, this struggle has been fought out on the meta-level. … limaios’pieces are anything but comfortable, she doesn’t seem to have even heard of the general drive in all the arts towards easily digestible entertainment and celebration of consumption. limaios’ choreographies owe their characteristic power not only to artistic effort, they also seem to possess something strangely authentic. it is exactly that what comprises a part of the charm of these works.« (michaela schlagenwerth, berliner zeitung, 2000)