Katalin Bito

Abandoned Islands

"I am floating in a big dream. Sometimes I'm scared because I can feel it consuming me. But there are times when the horizon shines pink. Large pieces of iron stick out of the ground like ancient bones: pillars of the world, instinctively put together with careless precision. Butterflies flit between them, sometimes one landing on my face to lick the salty moisture. You can almost feel the air - fresh and still glowing. The landscape seems empty, but I can mentally survey the richness it hides. Lives, stories of millennia... even though we say they're gone, they really shine here in this empty space."

Katalin Bito's project experiments with the impact that the various temporary part-time jobs she has held alongside her main creative work have had on her body and subconscious. The basic premise is that life's situations of dire necessity can turn out to be a source of inspiration. How can thoughtful and understated research help to express these moments of inspiration and sensitive, empathic observations in movement? In poetic images expressed through words and movements, the author shows the search for self, loneliness, the oscillation between hope and despair, the constructive and destructive qualities of creative energy.

This project is a never-ending process, a physical and symbolic space of listening and reflection. The initial phase of the work was conducted as part of a creative residency in Hellerau (Dresden), and the presentation took place in Budapest at the Trafó House of Contemporary Art and at the U500 Festival.

Katalin Bito is a Hungarian contemporary dancer and performer from Budapest. She works on her own productions together with guest artists and is also a member of the collective Irene Plaque. In her creative and research projects she deals with the theme of how memories are stored in the body, how imagination and internal images are used to address movements and the theme of corporeality and serve as a source of choreographic material. She sees dance as a texture, as an imprint in time and space and is therefore concerned with the hidden, intimate component of movement.

concept, dance, text, music: Catalin Bito

duration: 40 min

Zsófia Szász

Soft Loneliness (dance stand-up)

"Soft Loneliness" is a self-critical and funny dance stand-up based on an exploration of movements related to loneliness; it mixes Moldovan dolf dance and contemporary choreography.

Zsófia Szász masterfully crochets not only sets, props and costumes, but also movements and thoughts, creating an intimate yet welcoming world on stage in her first solo work.

"I began by searching for the sense of community that becomes essential when you are alone. I found it in Moldovan round dances. Also for me, solitude is something timeless: thoughts take shape and then flow again in a free, incoherent stream. This fluidity is expressed in contemporary dance. By combining the two dances, I wanted to achieve a movement that had plenty of recognisable forms and at the same time remained indeterminate. The end result of the research was Terpsichore. Through Terpsichore's dance and the depiction of her home, loneliness on stage becomes a shared experience."

Zsófia Szász graduated from the Budapest Academy of Contemporary Dance and has collaborated as a freelancer with many Hungarian artists. As a creator, she is interested in the fusion of modern and folk dance and the balancing act between the comprehensible and the incomprehensible. Zsófia crochets her own costumes for her performances.

Together with Alea Brantz and Katalin Bito she founded the collective Irene Plaque. The members of the collective explore how contemporary dance can find its place in society, dance and organise programmes. Zsófia Szász is a member of ICODACO (International Contemporary Dance Collective), is studying to be an art therapist and works with the Workshop Foundation (a foundation supporting contemporary dance).

Author (music, costume, set design, choreography, performance): Zsófia Szász

duration: 40 min