bytheway productions, «The Awesome Performance»
Julia Anna Brendle, «Radical kindness»

13^th Dance Days Chania
International contemporary dance festival | July 22^nd - August 2^nd

1st performance

bytheway productions, "The Awesome Performance" (Cyprus)

July 28th | 21:30 | "Mikis Theodorakis" theatre

The theme of the performance is that of awe. The performers share, through movement, voice and song, firsthand experiences of their own individual memories, feelings, and perception of awe. They explore the possibilities of change when and after experiencing awe. The individual transformation and humbleness found in order to then seek a wider existential connectedness to our environment and surroundings. What is the role of awe in our lives. What is it there for? When do we experience it? Is it necessary? Is that what art is there for? Do we seek it out or does it just happen? How lasting is this life change?

The choreographer writes: "The moments when I have experienced awe are more often connected to nature. When I find myself at the top of mountain looking at the all-embracing landscape with a light breeze sweeping through the trees. Or on a boat seeing the sea stretch out across the horizon. I have experienced it when entering cathedrals and other architecturally grand buildings. And even when I saw famous pieces of art and performances that I never thought I would experience firsthand. It is in these moments that I find myself thinking in a more expansive way. It is this grand scale of the vastness of our universe that usually triggers these moments of awe for me. Realizing how miniscule of a speck we are brings me a sense of comfort and place on this planet."

There is an element of quirkiness as well as humour present in the piece, which is characteristic of Bytheway productions aesthetic, with digital scenography and live sound design created especially for the piece. The two performers sit on two swings in an imagined space between heaven and earth, they experience this existential landscape and the expansion of time. They are in no rush to leave and yet are ready to leave in an instant, whenever it will be their time to go to their next phase. A deliberate sense of surrealism and other worldly aesthetic is created in order give space and to invite the audience in, to encourage them to remember their own experiences of awe and give them time and space to live those moments again.

This is the journey that the two performers take, they float, they wonder, and they awe.

Concept: Arianna Marcoulides

Content creators/Performers: Arianna Marcoulides, Eleana Alexandrou

Dramaturgy: Elena Agathokleous

Sound design: Panos Bartzis

Digital Scenography: Maria Mitsi

Scenography: Eva Korae/Skinotechniki

Light Design: Alexander Jotovic

Costumes: Arianna Marcoulides

Supported by the Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus.

2nd perfromance

Julia Anna Brendle, "Radical kindness" (Cyprus/ Germany)

July 28th | 22:15 | "Mikis Theodorakis" theatre

The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma and the memories inflicted by society and personal experience. The only truly useful memories are those that might initially seem to be the least reliable: memories stored in the body and not necessarily accessible by our conscious mind.

In this piece we ask the body to remember, share and develop a memory of the present.

Concept/choreography/performance: Julia Anna Brendle

Performance: Pascal Caron, Machi Dimitriadou Lindahl, Selina Koch

Music: Andreas Rodosthenous

Light design: Alexander Jotovic

Supported by the Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus.

TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrR86KKjPsc

- Tickets: 15€ regular - 12€ student, unemployed

- Double bill.

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