Opened: 2022
Non-verbal

“Travelling with the pace of a megasecond. Slowing down, breaking down the gestures that make us visible in society as active bodies yet invisible to each other as living beings. Viktor Szeri’s performance is a strong take on the phenomenon of burnout; the burnout of a society, the burnout of art as we know it. Szeri’s rhythmic body on stage becomes a partner to a flowing sonic tissue created by András Molnár and visuals by Tamás Páll. The performance unfolds as some kind of a toxic man-made landscape transforming into something that has lost all teleology and symbolism, at the same time allowing the audience to have deep dives into a different way of observation.

Viktor Szeri’s multidisciplinary pieces are a poetic interplay between various forms of (performing) arts and visual languages, blurring the boundaries between the stage and the auditorium. Dance, for him, is a language through which the imperfect, transient, and vulnerable human body can break free of the constraints of social norms. His piece Fatigue was awarded the Rudolf Lábán Prize for the best contemporary dance performance in 2022. Szeri is a founding member of the art group Hollow. Since 2020, he has been the main organiser of the Under500 interdisciplinary performing arts festival in Budapest.” Zsuzsa Berecz, curator

CREDITS

Created and performed by: Viktor Szeri
Music: András Molnár
Video: Tamás Páll
Light: Ferenc Payer
Production partner: Katlan Group

Special thanks to Lili Raubinek, Csenge Vass and Andi Soós.

REVIEWS

“Viktor Szeri is one of those artists in the realm of contemporary dance and theater who reflect on themselves, contemplating their individual experiences or the ordinary aspects of their daily lives, often with self-deprecation and sometimes with utmost seriousness. The honesty and the personal nature of these pieces make them truthful. This particular piece, created in close collaboration with fellow artists, goes far beyond the individual creators. Fatigue is a significant and prominent stage in the artistic career of Viktor Szeri. [...]

The power of Viktor Szeri’s piece lies in its rich simplicity. A body on stage –flooded by the powerful, hurtful and sometimes tedious storm of sounds and images – does nothing else, just exists. Lingering there for a very long time. Then it’s not there. Although Viktor Szeri fills this figure seamlessly, we are not actually looking at Viktor Szeri. Thus fatigue simultaneously has a painful truth and meaning, the true power of the piece is that it is able to turn this pain productive. The performance presents the drama of the human being set and forgotten in life clearly and poignantly.”
Ákos Török, Rudolf Lábán Award laudation (translated from Hungarian by Andi Soós)

Viktor Szeri 

… (born 1993) is an independent performer and choreographer based in Budapest. In his multidisciplinary pieces, the interplay of different forms of (performance) art and visual solutions can be observed. His spontaneous and improvisational creative processes are usually motivated by a desire to express a mood or a feeling. Yet, dance always plays a crucial role in his work: for him, it is a language through which the imperfect, transient, and vulnerable human body can break free of the constraints of social norms. His performances are visceral: often blurring the boundaries between the stage and the auditorium, they invite us into intimate realities where the audience has an active role. The ideology and complexity of conventional art spaces, such as theatres and galleries, are as much a source of interest as the potential in public spaces, off-sites, and abandoned buildings.

He always looks for new solutions, often in collaborations. In 2018, he founded the artist group Hollow with Tamás Páll and Gyula Muskovics, with whom he has worked regularly ever since. In their immersive installations and performances, choreography and dance are combined with poetry, new media art, and role-playing to create “world prototypes” where the dominant systems of consensual reality can be questioned or modified.

He received a BA in Choreography at the Budapest Contemporary Dance School, and an MA in Media Design at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. Recently, he has been awarded several scholarships and residencies in Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Istanbul, Warsaw, Tbilisi, and Minsk. His individual works and collaborations have been presented in Budapest at Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, MU Theatre, DunaPart - Platform for Contemporary Performing Arts, art quarter budapest, Studio of Young Artists’ Association, Placcc Dance, as well as MeetFactory (Prague), Y Events, Divadlo X10 (Prague), House of Arts (Brno), Donaufestival (Krems), Art Cologne (Cologne), Montag Modus (Berlin), radialsystem (Berlin), and Open Space - Centre for Visual and Performing Arts (Tbilisi).

His piece ‘Fatigue’ was awarded the Rudolf Lábán Prize for the best contemporary dance performance in 2022.

Since 2020, he has been the main organizer of the Under500 interdisicplinary performing arts festival in Budapest.

CONTACT

Viktor Szeri 
viktorszeri@gmail.com
+36704534264

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SUPPORTERS

National Cultural Fund of Hungary / Zoltán  Imre Programme, Ministry of Human Capacities, Katlan Group, Sín Arts Centre, MU Theatre