With „Rasp Your Soul”, Kat Válastur presents a solo work that introduces the series “The Staggered Dances of Beauty”, in which she re-evaluates the production of mythology as a tool for dealing with contemporary issues. The performer in Rasp Your Soul enacts a contemporary mythological being. Inside an uncanny environment he unleashes a series of kinetic monuments as altered codes of processed cultural signs. Ruins of language from capitalist digital culture transform into mantras that initiate precarious gestures, fading slang whispers, voice interruptions, molecular kinetics. We encounter elusive identities expressing different types of realness. The space becomes a field of tension between language and the visual connotations of fluid complex demands and input from the outside. „Rasp Your Soul” partly a dance piece, partly a choreographed concert, is a manifestation of the elusive. It builds up the narrative of a post-mythological space in which a humanoid with a “sensitive skin” makes us think about our flesh and bones.
Press Quotes:
The greek choreographer has not only developed a unique and personal form language, she also works on contemporary social questions.
In „Rasp Your Soul“ she investigates how a digital surrounding influences an analogue body.
(Enrico Tricconi performs) a phantasmic creature in a sensual pose. (…) Kat Valastur works expertly with the technological expansion of the body to get to new forms of expression and to show the flaring of existence.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Sandra Luzina, Tagesspiegel, November, 2017
concept, choreography, script, articulation: Kat Válastur
performance: Enrico Ticconi
set design and sculpture: Leon Eixenberger
light design and light objects: Martin Beeretz
sound design and music: Bryan Eubanks
additional sound: Kat Válastur
choreographer’s and production’s assistance: Giulia Amici
costume: Kat Válastur
costume assistance: Sofia Vannini
duration: 60 min
press & production (creation): björn & björn
production management (tour): Sina Kießling
touring & distribution: HAU Artist Office / Nicole Schuchardt
production: Kat Válastur
co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Fundacja Kultury Onassis, Theater Freiburg, Kunstencentrum STUK Leuven, Stichting Châtel sur Place Amsterdam
funded by: Departament Kultury i Europy Senatu Berlina / Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe
Supported by NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN) Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, TATWERK | Performative Forschung, Uferstudios, Tanzfabrik Berlin and ada Studio.