FIGURING AGE
Installation Theatre & Performance
Boglárka Börcsök leads the audience through the space and tells them about meeting Irén Preisich, Éva E. Kovács and Ágnes Roboz. She met all three women, then in their nineties, in 2015 on a research trip together with Andreas Bolm. As young women, they had all been active in the Hungarian modern dance movement. Börcsök filmed them in their apartments and watched the footage over and over again – until the three women took possession of her.
Her body seems to age from one moment to the next when she imitates their gestures, posture, dance movements and voices. The audience learns that Éva started dancing because she was not allowed to be a student. And that she never performed again after 1949 because the Communist regime prohibited modern dance with its individuality and freedom of expression.
Börcsök appears slow and fragile, but full of respect and expressive power – just like the three women do when meeting the choreographer on video. ‘FIGURING AGE’ achieves an impressive encounter between vital presence and complete absence.
reviews
cast
Concept, Choreography, Production: Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm, Dancers: Éva E. Kovács, Irén Preisich, Ágnes Roboz, Performance: Boglárka Börcsök, Lighting, Sound: Andreas Bolm, Costumes, Scenography: Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm, Production Assistant: Martyna Bezrąk, English Translation: David Robert Evans, Video: Andreas Bolm & Boglárka Börcsök (Editing), Lisa Rave (Camera), Elisa Calosi (Production Manager)
credits
With support from Collegium Hungaricum, Atelier No. 63 – PACT Zollverein, Essen, HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.
A section of this work was developed as part of ‘20 danseurs pour le XXème siècle’ (conceived by: Boris Charmatz, Terrain). Video: With support from the Dance Heritage Fund – an initiative of the Federal Cultural Foundation, La Musée de la Danse, Rennes and the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
FIGURING AGE is presented by the Impulse Theater Festival in co-operation with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen / K20.