...No.5

Pentalogie SHIFT OF SENSES- Part V
A dance piece by Ilona Pászthy

The production was supported by Kunststiftung NRW, SK Stiftung Köln, Ministerium für Städtebau und Wohnen, Sport und Kultur des Landes NRW, Kulturamt Köln, Fonds Darstellende Künste, Firmenich
and a Cooperation with Brotfabrik Bonn und Kulturbüro Krefeld
- nominated for the Cologne Dance Prize 2005-

The sens

e of smelling has a lot of functions: originally it was essential in order to find food, sexual partners, for orientation or to scent an upcoming danger - it’s the sense which immediately evokes memories of the past. Nowadays even marketing-economic aspects are taking part of our “nearly forgotten” sense of smelling: odours are designed and manipulated, as well as having a certain influence on our lifestyle and behaviour in a social context.
The interesting use of stage objects, video and light creates different spaces on stage; scenes are following each other, some are connected or dependent, others are just running parallel at the same time. Like in a test tube the reactions of different elements hitting each other are represented: ethereal solos alternate with animal duets and moving group sequences. In the tension between different states of reality, and in a play with the shift of senses, the audience is abducted into the world of smells. It is a world, which is prosecuting its own disassembly and revelation in a rather playful way by floating between sensuality and rationality.

Dancing clouds of perfume
“Usually I don’t eat chicken but it smelt so good, I could not resist…and do you know that everybody has his own unique smell behind the lobe of the ear?” The dancers’ eyes are fixing the audience, calm and self-confident as if nothing would happen. Ignoring that her colleague is climbing and hanging on to her body like a monkey trying to smell, test and bite every piece of her skin. He is greedy and beastly and she keeps on lecturing about the various sorts of smell (…)
Simone Thielmann, Kölner Stadt Anzeiger, 26.09.2005

If you are zapping through the TV programme you cannot avoid the Shopping-channels anymore. Idealists still think that they’ve just zapped into a comedy show…In her new piece No.5, Ilona Pászthy turns advertisement into satire (…) “All your dreams will become true by using this incredible smell”…there is no human sense that manipulates and influences more than the olfactoric one even if it is in a very modest and subtle way(…) Like in the earlier parts of the pentalogie “shift of senses” the woman sequences impress the most: Ute Pliestermann plays with the different variations of seduction in the duets with her male colleagues. By using an animal-floor grounded movement material she evokes a quite aggressive erotic. Whereas Julia Eisele represents the outsider in the quartet: with her costume in the colour of the stage setting she is like an always present but mostly ignored odour that, nevertheless is beautifying everything (…) No.5 shows how surprisingly intelligent dance about the sense of smell can be.

Nicole Strecker, Kölnische Rundschau, 26.09.2005