toula

cie. toula limnaios

if I was real 2013

reviews

»if i was real« is inspired by camu’s early literary essays “l’envers et l’endroit” (betwixt and between). the shadows stand for fear of strangeness, the silence of the world and the apparent lack of control over what is world. the light symbolizes the beauty, the acceptance of this incomprehensible world.

camus writes: »there is no love of life without desperation to live.« we are divided between these two poles, between feeling and rationality, the mind swings back and forth.

»if i was real« reflects paradoxes and ambiguities. the composition develops like a collection and shows fragmentary pictures full of secrets of hidden connection. without intrusive charging with specific “meaning”, they appear strange on the one hand, but on the other hand they are familiar in a way that cannot be properly named.

in search of an answer, the interpreters always roam about, stumble in a divided room. they invent rituals to dispel fear and come to their own limits in despair. a choreographic collection, a thin line between the recognizable reality of everyday life and a bizarre double world / dream world.

»astonishing how toula limnaios and her company reinvent themselves over and over again.« (neues deutschland, karin schmidt-feister, 2013) 

»whereas in ›if i was real‹, she surprisingly leaves fate, pain and suffering behind and takes off into a round dance of festive-wild beauty.« (kulturradio, frank schmid, 2013) 

premiere 5 dez 2013

a cie. toula limnaios production with kind support by the culture department of berlin.

concept/choreography

toula limnaios

music

ralf r. ollertz

dance/creation

giacomo corvaia, jozsef forro, marika gangemi, samuel minguillon, hironori sugata, karolina wyrwal, inhee yu, ann-christin zimmermann

lightdesign

jan langebartels

public relation

silke wiethe

space/costumes

antonia limnaios, toula limnaios

fotos

dieter hartwig, cyan

reviews

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»the cie. toula limnaios takes a special place in the big dance scene of berlin. it has been working in berlin continuously for 15 year, it has had its own venue – halle in prenzlauer berg for 10 years, and, besides the company of sasha waltz, it is the only company in berlin working with a permanent dance ensemble.
despair and love /// inspired by camus – is the appropriate description of this choreography. namely, the inspirational material were early essays, camus’ erstling light and shadow from 1937. yet, it is impossible to translate camus into images, toula limnaios just said in an interview. however, references can be found: inspired by camus, light and shadow here are to be understood as rejection and acceptance of the world as it is, as consciously experienced strangeness and celebration of its beauty, as despair in life and love for life, all of which inseparably belongs together, as camus says. It’s a field of tension in which toula limnaios nevertheless moves. she does so in her existentially based magical realism, to which poetry and drama belong as sisters. whereas in her new choreography, she surprisingly leaves fate, pain and suffering behind and and takes off into a round dance of festive-wild beauty.«  (kulturradio, frank schmid, 2013)

»a janus-faced dance between thin lines /// … spaces slide in and out of each other…
astonishing how toula limnaios and her company, based in the halle tanzbühne for 10 years now, reinvent themselves over and over again.
on the stage divided in three spaces, eight performers wander between worlds. … in the polyphonic solo and group images, the protagonists are barely reminiscent of lone warriors, of ragged individuals who wear themselves out fighting each other. no, in her new work toula limnaios permanently dissolves the powerful unison formations. she creates sensual movement reflections, full of fleeting and sensitive beauty.
inspired by camus’ ›l’envers et l’endroit / light and shadow‹, the versatile company ›cie. toula limnaios‹ bestows us a danced essay on possibilities of being. silent, mysterious, open to new perspectives, a bit crazy.« (neues deutschland, karin schmidt-feister, 2013)