In CASCADE, Meg Stuart and seven dancers look for ways to resist the arrow of time. Meeting in structures of rhythmic complexity, they propel their bodies and imaginations into a new temporal space, envisioning a new earth and rebalancing inevitable outcomes. They go in search of a secret passage, a future playground, a sanctuary. This is a place of wavering rules and where any guiding principles constantly transform into something different, interrupting each other all the while…
In a game of refusal and care, disruption becomes a driving force: rushes and falls succeed one another, bodies lose their bearings, principles are repeated, interrupted and transformed. Hovering at the edge of uncertainty, the dancers wonder what kind of dream they need to give up in order to keep dreaming, what kind of body they need to acquire to keep going. CASCADE is a surrender to what we don’t know about the other.
Stuart collaborated with set designer and theater maker Philippe Quesne to bring this flickering, fluctuating world to life. Driven by Brendan Dougherty‘s sound score, performed live by two percussionists, the dancers embark on a free fall through the crumbling of time.
The effect of CASCADE is like pressing on the Reset button. It reinitialises the coordinates of an unstable reality, and sets off in search of other modes of interaction and collective organisation.
All images © Martin Argyroglo
CASCADE
10th – 12th September
PACT Zollverein as part of Ruhrtriennale
Choreography, Meg Stuart
Created and performed by, Pieter Ampe, J. Batut, Mor Demer, Davis Freeman, Márcio Kerber Canabarro, Renan Martins de Oliveira, and Isabela Fernandes Santana
Stage design, light design, Philippe Quesne
Dramaturgy, Igor Dobricic
Music composition, Brendan Dougherty
Costume design, Aino Laberenz
Assistant choreography, Francisco Camacho
Assistant scenography, Elodie Dauguet