Production EPIDEMIC in co-production with Schauspielhaus Bochum, Le Volcan – scène nationale du Havre, Le Manège Maubeuge – scène nationale transfrontalière and HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts Dresden.

Vortex is a thrilling hybrid stage event. The hypnotic effect of the light and video worlds of the artist Ulf Langheinrich is combined with the energetic choreography of the rising Italian choreographer Maria Chiara de’Nobili. As the bodies of the dancers are increasingly dissolved in light, the audience is encouraged to reflect on a society driven by images and media that can no longer be understood by the criteria of differentiation between virtual and actual reality.

Ulf Langheinrich: “Experienced reality is a hallucination. It is not made real by being physically true but because we believe the experience. Dreams, for example, are suited to generating such a convincing hallucination of reality that they are experienced as real independent of physical evidence.”

Maria Chiara de’Nobili’s core choreographic concept consists of developing movements out of the internal energy of the dancers. The references range from dancing in a techno club at five o’clock in the morning and a baby’s early movements after birth to the other side of the movement spectrum related to sexual climax or even epileptic fits. The light on stage, the light from the screens and the light on the bodies occupies a permanent state of oscillation between slow waves and rapid impulses.

Ulf Langheinrich: “The various signs of disintegration that are presented in the course of Vortex reflect contemporary social processes. This is about the fact that loss is the central experience of being in the world. Especially a loss of trust that what we know is correct, and not wanting to understand becoming an act of emancipation from the garrulousness of existence.”

Maria Chiara de’Nobili was a dancer with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company before completing a Master of Choreography at the Palucca University in Dresden. She was represented at the dance biennale in Venice in both 2018 and 2019. Ulf Langheinrich founded the duo Granular Synthesis with Kurt Hentschläger in Vienna at the beginning of the Nineties, which created pioneering monumental multimedia installations and performances. He has since become an internationally successful solo artist.

VORTEX: Making of (2020) ► zum Video

VORTEX: Trailer 1 (2020) ► zum Video

VORTEX: Trailer 2 (2020) ► zum Video

Important notice: Suitable for ages 16 and up. Stroboscopic light effects will be used for considerable periods during the event. The event is therefore not suitable for people with epilepsy, serious heart problems or claustrophobic anxiety and for pregnant people. The event must not be attended under the influence of mind-altering drugs. The video projections show images that could be experienced as disturbing or repulsive.