TAUSENDhertz

Pentalogy SHIFT OF SENSES Part III
A dancepiece by Ilona Pászthy

Awarded as the best dance theater Cologne 2003

The space
The Deutzer Brücke (Bridge) is divided into 3 rooms, each about 135 m long and 9 m wide, connected to each other. There is an echo in the rooms. In the first room we have four small stages, each 2 to 3 m, a bit further a 16 by 4 m stage, and some big tubes as stage objects. In the second room we find 22 by 4 m of artificial grass, on the small sides the audience find their chairs. In the third room we find the last stage as well as three more small grass stages of 1 square meter. The audience find its way through the piece from one scene to the other led by sound impulses.

The piece
The third part looks for the sense of “listening”. Sound creates spaces and paints pictures, creates moods and influences or irritates our senses. It is an important factor of each human relationship. Through three rooms and five pictures the audience walks into a sensual experience. The sound installation deals with the special aspects of the space.

Instruments play with distances in space using the three rooms of the bridge. They create irritations about the origin of sounds: which sounds are real and which not? For example in one moment the audience has to make a decision about its point of perspective and the sound. The people have to decide from which side they want to see the scene and if they want to listen to the real sound or the sound of a walkman. However they decide, they will have a different impression and will experience an individual reality. But can they decide? Different scenes create images of relationships around desires and longing, around moments of our times (of media overflow) and the resulting social structures.
Contemporary dance, theatrical sequences, partnering and stage elements form the choreography. An interplay of stage objects, choreography and sound installation leads the audience into a journey through emotion and irritation, a journey between the worlds; above moves the traffic (technique) and below the Rhine (nature).
“Since her series shift of senses Ilona Pászthy works continiously with new aspects.
With the third part “TAUSENDhertz” the jury awards a prize for the piece, in which “listening” is shown as a sensitive experience and a communicative
instrument in an impressive dance”.

Kölner Stadtanzeiger 12 / 2003