Harmonia

HARMONIA is an exception. It is rare for productions by German city theater dance companies to get national and international attention, to be invited to important festivals and dance platforms and go on tour.

The piece develops cautiously. The dancers are completely one with their bodies, the arms, legs, torso, the limits that they have. The borders are tangible; that is communication. They are present, in the place, in the moment; that means, they have time. They knead, stretch and crumple them; that's how it has an effect. Completely peacefully. Tense up, relax, sense and nonsense, stabile, unstable. Rhythm that comes from the inside and outside. They create balances. Dance. The result is a choreographically polished, coherent work that understands inclusion to be human togetherness and diversity.

The Hungarian choreographer Adrienn Hód formed HARMONIA with the Ensemble Unusual Symptoms at the Theater Bremen in coproduction with her own company Hodworks and the Trafó cultural center in Budapest. The team this created and a diverse group of ten dancers with and without handicaps question the hierarchies of classical dance and throw standard ideas of the body and structures surrounding it overboard while newly redirecting our gaze on all of this – which is in and of itself a remarkable thing. Not only because multiple grants can be bundled in such international constellations that are needed for such an elaborate and cost-intensive rehearsal process. This second cooperation between the German and Hungarian artists also demonstrates that surprising creative synergies can be developed.

HARMONIA was awarded the Rudolf Lábán Prize for Hungary’s best dance piece in 2023.