Still Life

"There’s a terrible monotony in chaos. As we sit, wide awoke and transfixed, trapped in a terrifying stop-motion time-lapse, a white noise trembles underneath our still lives; humming, burning and screaming behind the mask of sophistication that has become modern social interaction."

Still Life, translates into French as Nature Morte - dead nature. Butoh is often described as living death, brought forward by distress. A state of dying, still alive: a suspension of grotesque dilapidation. What better image to describe our time? Nature is dying, and all the while we’re rendered immobile, stuck in our still lives – living, but dying. Through the windows of our little chambers, we watch forest fires and torrential floods tear away at the landscape – we stare life in the face – transfixed by the constant echo of our desires, what we think we want – predicted for us, on the basis of our fractured selves, millions of data-points re-hashed and sold back to us as advertisements for lives we wished we were living: Connected, disconnected.

Still Life is a new creation for Mirai Moriyama and Daniel Proietto, two incredible performers who both have ventured far beyond contemporary dance in search for new physical expressions – together they share experience from working with Kabuki, Butoh, contemporary theatre, film and television. With Still Life is a work that innately deals with nature – within and without – exploring how we can mend our relationship with ourselves, and in turn each other and the living world around us.

"We often forget that we are nature. Nature is not someting separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, we've lost our connection to ourselves."

- Andy Goldsworthy

World premiere Dansens Hus, Oslo May 23-26, 2024
Julidans, Amsterdam, July 13th-15th, 2024
Venize Biennale, July 23rd-24th, 2024