Panama Pictures and TeaTime Company invite you to the playing floor of the Verkadefabriek, for a special double bill: two performances in which the boundaries of dance and contemporary circus are blurred and the performers are challenged by special circumstances and objects.
Panama Pictures The world turned upside down (premiere)
Enter the theatre hall, take a seat in a beach chair on the playing floor and be surprised by a world of your own that opens up above you. Five performers climb on a slanting metal grid – they balance on it, search for hold, almost slide down through the holes, barely catch each other.
Hanging upside down, they circle above your head until they drop to land next to your chair, then pull each other up again. So moments of superhuman-seeming strength alternate with cautiously searching, probing movements. A choreography in the air that connects the virtuosic and the human into a hypnotic whole – to touch so close.
Choreographer Pia Meuthen: “During rehearsals of previous pieces, the performers often told me that one day they would like audiences to see a performance from their perspective. That they wanted spectators to experience what it’s like to see bodies hovering above you and suddenly come down beside you, to let them experience with them what they see and feel as performers. With The world turned upside down, we are making that possible.”
Tea Time Company Ripple
At Ripple, you sit in a large circle around the playing floor, while a giant metal spiral, no less than five metres long and 2.5 metres high dominates the stage. This is not just another object or prop, it is a set that can move completely, turning it into an acrobatic and manipulable playground.
As the spiral rolls in circles awe-inspiringly across the stage, the performers face constant challenges. They are forced to respond to the constant movement of the metal wheel, which at some moments seems to obey and at others seems to have a will of its own. However, the spiral also allows them to push their limits: with a jump, they can stop time, and a fall can slow them down forever.
With Ripple, TeaTime Company’s three performers explore themes of balance, influence, power, flow and friction. The ‘ripple effect’ describes the influence, persistence and consequences of our choices for good reason. Just as natural forces cause vibrations and ripples in water, our choices cause ripples in our relationships, thoughts and experiences.
“It is impressive, this dance and acrobatics performance by TeaTime Company, and it never becomes an accumulation of tricks,” writes the Theaterkrant about Ripple.
