THE PARALLAX VIEW // World Premiere: 7th May 2010, Les Halles, Sierre (CH) Germany Premiere: 14th May 2010, Theater im Ballsaal, Bonn // in co-production with ATOUT-Les Halles, Sierre / Theater im Ballsaal, Bonn / O Espaço do Tempo, Montemor-o-Novo / Fabrik Heeder Krefeld / LOFFT Leipzig // Funded by: Théâtre-Pro Valais / Loterie Romande / L’encouragement des activités culturelles du canton du Valais / MIGROS pour-cent culturel / Kunststiftung NRW / Bundesstadt Bonn / Ministerpräsident des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen im Rahmen der Spitzenförderung für Freie Tanzensembles // By and with Volkhard Samuel Guist, Martin Inthamoussú, Athanasia Kanellopoulou, Victoria Perez, Raquel Torrejón /// Choreography / Direction: Rafaële Giovanola /// Music: Jörg Ritzenhoff ) /// Video installation: Bruno Perosa /// Lighting design: Marc Brodeur /// Text: Bastien Fournier /// Costumes: Sabine Schnetz /// Dramaturgy / Concept: Rainald Endraß 5 dancers, 1 technician stage: 12m x 12m videobeamer duration: 1.10 h // About the piece Nothing is as it seems! The conspiratorial and speculative moment appears to be the dominant cultural category of the digital age. Trust and suspicion become opponents in the conflict between reality and fiction, a fight in which the one can no longer be distinguished from the other. In the political and cultural conflicts of our lives shaped by media, and especially by the Internet, we all have become players in a growing realm of conspiracy. However, do we not long for the fleeting mood of the conspiracy? Do we not relish our desire to search for the sense of the unexplainable within the fantastic, to regard coincidence as fate and thus, to understand ‘world’ with the help of the narrative? THE PARALLAX VIEW tracks down the constructive moment behind the paranoid manifestations and, besides, discovers the phenomenon conspiracy as a creative and poetic narrative strategy. // Press reviews "The theatre is a machine of the imagination that produces ever new perspectives on reality. Perspectives that, in the ideal case, undermine our views of the familiar and put them to question. Or they catapult us into strange worlds. How familiar or strange the view appears, depends on the location of the viewer, the object and its background. This is called Parallax. (...) What comes to light here is a radical analysis of relationship, phenomenally interpreted by Volkhard Samuel Guist, Athanasia Kanellopoulou, Martin Inthamoussú, and Victoria Perez. Approaches, failure to touch, fusions, bodies writhe and fall, and everything is danced with tremendous intensity. (...) “The Parallax View”, which premiered in Sierre in Switzerland, seems a bit cluttered. The references to conspiracy theories, digital media, to reality and fiction come along as romantic dressing up of the idea that reality is always a question of interpretation, an idea well known since Plato and forced by postmodernism." (Hans-Christoph Zimmermann, General-Anzeiger, Bonn) "With five male and female dancers, the choreography by Cocoondance chief choreographer Rafaële Giovanola “pulls the wool over our eyes”. However, one may see through this and gain insight. It works similar to this: inside is outside and today is yesterday, and the whole is presented in a comic way. There, a blue woman, panting, accompanied by Joerg Ritzenhoff’s acoustic installation, strains besides a tent, and, at the same time, she can be seen on a screen, rushing through a forest, haunted by fear. Meanwhile, two couples make out in the tent. But now the choreographer converts the images into each other. See above. The tent is spinning. Step by step, the exchanging of outside for inside takes place, an in the end, the woman is inside the tent, and the others rush through the forest. As it happens with conspiracy theories; no one knows anything except that Giovanola has devised powerful dance-images for Athanasia Kanellopoulou, Vicky Perez, Raquel Torrejón, Volkhard Samuel Guist and Martin Inthamousu." (Heinz-Dieter Terschüren, Bonner Rundschau)

• published: 07 May 2012
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