SWARM

by Artus – Company of Gábor Goda

Performer: Gábor GODA Dancer: Tamás BAKÓ
Musicians: Endre KERTÉSZ, Zoltán MÓZES, György PHILIPP
Creative collaborators: Gábor KOCSIS, Márton DEBRECZENI
Creative technology: Gábor PAPP, Gáspár HAJDU (XORXOR)
Video: Jan van IJKEN (The art of flying)
Music leader: György PHILIPP Directed by Gábor GOD

Premiere: 2017

Date I saw This Show: 27 November, 2019

 

What I Saw

 

Swarm is a 70-minute piece that consists of three distinct parts: a lecture, an interactive game, and a performance, all centered around the idea of a swarm. Creator Gábor Goda began the piece by speaking with us in English about the concept of swarms and how they function in the natural world. Each member of the audience was then given their own mini laser pointer and instructed to direct it towards various locations in the space. We practiced creating our own human swarm by attempting to get all our red points to converge and move in sync. A dancer then performed a freestyle piece, still guided by the red dots of our lasers, and improvised to the music of four onstage musicians. The dancer was equipped with motion-capture sensors so that his performance could be visually projected as a series of lines and dots on a screen behind him in real time. At the end of the performance, the swarm started to tilt, and Goda moved around the stage positioning the musicians, the dancer, and other set pieces so that they seemed to float at 45 degree angles, suspended in space. Visually interesting, it was less clear to me how this final tableau connected to the idea of the swarm.

 

Overall, I found the piece intriguing as a sustained idea. My own bias for text (and narrative) however, meant that this was one of the performances I connected with the least.

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About the Artist

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The Artus Company is an independent contemporary physical theatre, established in 1985 by Gábor Goda. Since being founded, the company has created more than 100 performances and played in 25 countries. Right from the beginning, they have been actively involved in seeking and organizing international projects, residency programmes and co-productions.

 

Artus is not only an interdisciplinary collective, made up of the 30 artists working here, and the association that provides the infrastructural background for artistic work, but also a studio: a creative centre, with its own 2000-square-metre venue converted from an abandoned factory building.

 

The studio regularly hosts performances by the Artus Company, as well as visual art exhibitions, guest performances and various other cultural events.