Trailer DREAM CITY by CocoonDance company

Trailer filmed and edited by Michael Maurissens/ CARRÉ BLANC PRODUCTIONS

ABOUT THE PIECE
// Premiere 18.01.2019, Oh! Festival, Zeughaus Kultur, Brig (CH)
// German premiere 01.02.2019, 20:00 h, Ringlokschuppen Ruhr Mülheim

Produced by CocoonDance in Coproduction with Théâtre du Crochetan Monthey, Ringlokschuppen Ruhr Mülheim, Theater im Ballsaal Bonn.

Funded by ProHelvetia, ThéâtrePro Valais, Loterie Suisse Romande, Conseil de la Culture, État du Valais Kunststiftung NRW, Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bundesstadt Bonn

Cast Swiss Premiere 18.01.2019, Zeughaus Kultur Brig (CH)
By and with Fa-Hsuan Chen, Tiago Diaz, Martina de Dominicis, Camille Erba, Álvaro Esteban, Emilie Gunzinger, Mathilde Hauser, Océane Major, Valério Maselli, Gilles Menzel, Werner Nigg, Hugo Pratap Parvex, Chloé Rohrbach, Minela Tavares, Frédéric Voeffray, Marko Zelenovic
Cast German Premiere 01.02.2019, Ringlokschuppen Ruhr Mülheim
By and with Fa-Hsuan Chen, Martina De Dominicis, Álvaro Esteban, Emilie Gunzinger, Amand Herczeg, Anna Kempin, Lola Kornbrust, Werner Nigg, Milon Pauka, Maris Pauka, Hugo Pratap Parvex, Chloé Rohrbach, Minela Tavares, Frédéric Voeffray, Marko Zelenovic
Choreography, direction Rafaële Giovanola // Composition, DJing Franco Mento // Light design Patrick Jacquérioz // Collaboration space concept Monnard Design Legros Studio // Technical implementation Germany Peter Behle // Costumes Mathilde Grebot // Choreographic assistance Leonardo Rodrigues // Dramaturgy Rainald Endraß // Management Mechtild Tellmann

In its last productions, CocoonDance has consistently gone on a quest for the 'unthought' body. The result is more than just original dance pieces: "Experiments of the bodies, external and self-perception", which open a new look at the body and movements. Movements which not only pull through the bodies of the dancers, but also those of the audience.
In the new project Dream City, CocoonDance is searching for a structure of multiform coexisting bodies, images of the One, further developed, more complex organism that communicates with itself. The choreography makes a physical form of communication productive, drawing inspiration from non-human, organic and instinctive processes. Bodies become in this regard bodies that are not identical with each other, but open to a progressive interlinked locomotion.

The artistic foundations of this project are based above all on the research of the motion quality of "other bodies", which has become a far-reaching approach to the choreographic work of CocoonDance. In Dream City, CocoonDance dancers will meet children and teenagers from the Junior Company, urban dancers and parcour artists as well as DJ sound artist Franco Mento. They all merge into one organism, as a polyphonic synthesis of disparate components.
The title is borrowed from the essay Speaking in Tongues by British writer Zadie Smith, who describes her dream city as “a place of many voices, where the unified singular self is an illusion. (...) In Dream City everything is doubled, everything is various. You have no choice but to cross borders and speak in tongues.”

PRESS CLIPPINGS

At the end of this impressive evening, three things in particular stick in the mind of the audience that rewarded the dance performance with downright exuberant applause. Giovanola's idea to show as many gaits as never seen before, the high performance of the dancers and the question of how the urban society of the future must look like in reality. One can hardly expect more from such an evening. (Michael S. Zerban, O-Ton Internet magazine, accessed: Feb. 1, .2019)

Again and again the spectators are amazed by the body control displayed by the dancers who seem to undermine the laws of gravity, and the precision in which they, despite the rapidity and narrowness of their movements, avoid any collisions. Thereby the professional and non-professional dancers, adults and children (the youngest is just eight years old), merge into a harmonious blend... . A breathtaking evening with an enormous emotional impact. (Steffen Tost, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Feb. 4, 2019)