Some words of performance experienced in 2016...

ZVIZDAL - Holocene [#6] – 2016 [Chernobyl - so far so close]

A filmic portrait about two people, living in a ghost town. A story about solitude and survival, the results of a failed atomic experiment.

1986. About 90 towns and villages around Pripyat are evacuated. The failure of an atomic experiment causes a drastic change in the lives of the locals. They leave their houses never to return.

Pétro and Nadia, a married couple of 60-year-olds who were born and raised in Zvizdal, refuse to be evacuated. They prefer to stay put in their old village, in their own house. A ghost town. All their acquaintances have left, their plundered houses bear witness to better days. Petrified places, overgrown by nature.

Between 2011 and 2016 Berlin follows Pétro and Nadia in an effort to portray the evolution of their story over the years. How does one bear years of isolation? There is the lack of electricity, of running water and heating. There are the superstitions, there is the vodka, the muttering, the cursing and praying and singing, the toothaches, the ailments of old age, the 20-km walk to the nearest shop, the wait for someone from civilization.

Zvizdal draws a portrait of solitude, survival, poverty, hope and love between two elderly people in their eighties surrounded by colourless, odourless but omnipresent radiation.

STATE is part dance performance and part live concert, and things out of a lengthy research into ritual dances from a range of places and times. The interest lies in what mental and bodily states these dances can produce amongst performers and spectators. Together with renown costume designer Henrik Vibskov and the world-touring noise musician Lasse Marhaug, Fiksdal and Petersen have created an immersive performance, where choreography, costume, sound, light and Norwegian spirits take the audience on a suggestive trip. STATE is performed by five dancers and two musicians.

link: http://ingrifiksdal.com/work/state-2016/