Wonderful World is a modern world’s twisted portrayal, in which fakery and glamour seem to plaster over the last glimmers of hope. The performers burst onto the stage like living, breathing avatars or emoticons.
Physical theatre, original music and contemporary dance merge as Collective B offers a progression of hilarious, gut-wrenching sequences imitating the delay and distort effect the media cause in relating images of violence.
The starting point for this performance is the media’s reaction to both a terrorist attack in France and a sexual assault in Austria, in which the artists themselves lost friends. With movement and sound, images of violence from the media are transposed into exaggerated, intense forms that turn out to be hysterically funny or pathetic.
While Collective B’s grinning musicians make sure the world is kept on edge, two girlfriends from the mall struggle valiantly to keep love and peace alive with every drop of energy in their awkward bodies.
Following the performance, an artist talk will be moderated by Alja Ferjan, Slovenian artist based in Austria. The discussion will be led in English.
Collective B is preparing especially for Syndicate a 1-day workshop on Sunday, 19 April entitled Epic and Freaky Marriage of Movement & Sound.
Collective B is an Art ensemble established in Vienna (Austria) and Lodève (France). The ensemble consists of international young artists who combine close friendship, dance, music, circus and visual arts. The members of Collective B share common artistic and living visions upon the contemporary world, giving rise to time-sensitive Art-works.
Concept & Choreography: Elsa Mourlam
Performance: Sonia Borkowicz & Elsa Mourlam
Music Composition: Tomas Novak
Live Music: Tomas Novak, Christopher Haritzer, Voland Székely
Production and stage management support: Alja Ferjan
“Wonderful World” Supports:
Syndicate of Outlandish Entities Ljubljana, Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company LondonDerry, Centre National de la Danse Pantin, Dance On Tour Vienna, Im_flieger Vienna, Bazaar Festival Prague, Studio Alta Prague, Austrian Culture Forum Warsaw, Art Stations Foundation by Grazyna Kulczyk Poznan, Pawilon Poznan, Lovayoga Poznan, AKC Attack! Zagreb, Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität Linz, De Figuranten Menen, Clipa Theater Tel Aviv
Organized by: Emanat
In collaboration with: Bunker/Old City Power Plant
Performance photos: Adéla Vosičková
“By avoiding overt didactic gestures, the piece also remains elusive to the audience, creating an equally conflicted, and politically charged, discourse. Such offers are valuable these days, and a refreshing change from the cynical politics of status-quo that pervades western societies. The approach attacks powerful aesthetic structures through the tools available in the theatre, and in doing so give old approaches to physical theatre a new life."
- Richard Pettifer, Faki Festival, Zagreb, 2018
“Watching yesterday I realised how deeply musical this piece is. I mean that in a way that goes well beyond the observation of the skill and control of the three musicians playing Bass Clarinet, Percussion and Violin. The costume and mise-en-scene indicates a theatrical, perhaps expressionist, genre but the timing of the action, the use of repetition, the particular lengths of waiting between events all have a feeling of being driven by an intensely musical sensibility.”
- Steve Batts, Artistic Director, Echo Festival 2019, Derry, Northern-Ireland
"Elsa Mourlam (...) drives collective vision without monopolizing it, and is very concerned about communicating with the audiences in a new way, a way that surprises it."
- Ewan McLaren, Artistic Director Bazaar Festival, Prague