‘Freezing from one posture to another, there are six dancers standing almost paralyzed onstage: moving barely and haltingly, they produce deformed noises like gurgle, burp, laugh, and sounds that don’t even have names. Sounds that erupt from the depth of the body. Mirage, the latest choreography of Hodworks, focuses on the fine lines between movement and voice, both animal and human. It pushes the limit of the topic to a point, where all the qualities blur and nearly dissolve into each other. Then, the choreography explodes, and ends as a monumental revue.

Hodworks is probably today’s most acknowledged Hungarian contemporary dance company. They have received the prestigious contemporary dance prize (Rudolf Laban prize) three times, and have been invited to Aerowaves and dunaPart several times during previous years.

Choreographer, Adrienn Hód has developed a peculiar aesthetic of ‘concrete theatre’ in which plurality and versatility dominates. The language she uses is often drawn from social taboos and politics and is oversaturated with signs, sensations, reflexions and ambiguity. She doesn’t offer a normative synthesis in her works, and therefore, meanings disperse and remain promises that may come.’ Zsuzsanna Komjáthy, curator

CREDITS

Performers and co-creators: Jenna Jalonen, Máté Horváth, Csaba Molnár, Beáta Egyed, Zoltán Vakulya, Marcio Kerber Canabarro

Music: Béla Bartók: For Children and Ábris Gryllus
Lights: Miklós Mervel
Costume and props: Csenge Vass
Dramaturg: Ármin Szabó-Székely
Choreographer: Adrienn Hód

REVIEWS

'Hodworks’ latest production, Mirage, challenges the limits of contemporary dance. […] The choreographer has left the beaten path, and her style has a maturity that goes beyond mere experimentation. […] The solos and the back-breaking duets conjure up images of utter helplessness, only to be played down in the very next moment. […] Everyone is equally exciting and weighty in this performance, which contains no trace of the usual contemporary dance moves.' Ákos Török, critic

'A ‘counter-work’, ‘spoof’, ‘pamphlet’, ‘diagnosis’, ‘memorial’ are some of the words that Hodworks’ première, Mirage, brings to mind […] The first two thirds of the ostensibly ‘thought provoking’ piece, is a harrowing example that tests the limits of tolerance. […] The first half of the performance seemingly deals with society as a whole, whilst the second half stages the specific self-image, history and reflections of dance. This may not seem obvious, but one thing is clear, the two halves communicate subtly and consistently.' Tamás Halász, critic

TOURS & FESTIVALS ABROAD

Deltebre Dansa, Deltebre (Catalonia, Spain)
Yeah Yeah Yeah Festival, Zürich (Switzerland)
The Paintbrush Factory – 10 years anniversary program (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

HODWORKS

Hodworks was founded by choreographer Adrienn Hód in 2007. Besides permanent members, the Budapest-based international company works with artists invited from different field of arts. Hodworks regroups sensible, proactive and forward-thinking creators having their own creative and concentrated working methods. They focus on the human body itself, liberated from any mediators, limits, sets or props. Hodworks pieces, always taking a new and progressive direction, are result of a long, creative body research based on improvisation, which appears in a strictly structured form on stage. Hód choreographies own a delicately developed, fine, high-quality language balancing between the exact and the very abstract representation. These pieces stimulate the audience’s spirit and senses and invite us doubting in the known and opening up towards the unknown. They do not compromise; they do not want to please.

Her pieces, Basse Danse in 2012, Dawn in 2014 and Conditions of Being a Mortal in 2015, have been selected into the 20 most outstanding contemporary dance pieces by Aerowaves European dance network. Her company, Hodworks regularly appears at international festivals and theatres.

The company participated also in the programme of dunaPart3 (2015) with Condition of Being A Mortal, and dunaPart4 (2017) with Solos.

CO-PRODUCERS

MU Theatre, OFF Foundation

SUPPORTERS

Ministry of Human Resources, National Culture Fund, SÍN Arts Centre, Summa Artium, Partnership with Workshop Foundation