Company BODHI PROJECT , Restless (2011)
Choreography: Magdalena Reiter
Performed by: Andrea Bartok, Juli Lanyi, Marcio Canabarro, Plotinos Eliades, Shai Faran
Produced by: SEAD, Salzburg
Premiere: 6.07.2011, Toihaus, Salzburg
Photo: Alfred Leis
POLISH DANCE THEATRE, 36,5 ºC (2007)
Choreography: Magdalena Reiter
Performed by: dancers of Polish Dance Theatre
Produced by Polish Dance Theatre, Stara Gara (Slovenia)
Coproduced by Cankarjev Dom (Slovenia)
Excerpts from reviews:
Horrifying dance of solitude
Is it possible to tell with dance about a deep, thrilling solitude? It seem that yes, it is. At least Magdalena Reiter knows how to do it. She showed it in the performance „36,5 ºC” on the premiere in CK Zamek. What does it actually mean – 36,5 ºC? It is the temperature of a healthy human body. Physically healthy – because it is not that easy any more with mental health and the temperature of the soul. We need many more things for the mental health: love, acceptance, presence of other people, their benevolence, friendliness, and so on. We are trying to do anything in order to achive the ideal temperature of the soul, but – as it appears in the performance of Magdalena Reiter, very ofter we exaggerate. In pursuit of perfection we are desperately trying to be equal to the made up canons of beauty, to the ideal model of behaviour in order to become the sublime woman, truly manly man, the most amusing guy or the most sexy girl… Yet we don’t realize that those mad attempts are doomed for failure – because ideals don’t exist – they are distroying people we are intimate with, just because they are not perfect. It is damaging to ourselves as well, because how long can one be chasing the unattainable without running crazy…? And exactly this isolation, stigmatization of the different ones, lack of understanding, pain and dispair, and then merely the fear of the next attempt of coming close to someone – that is what moves most. Precisely that is what the authoress is asking: how often we are hurting each other while we are together, just because we can’t communicate? How much harm do we cause to ourselves by confining?
More or less It inheres in every one of us. Though it can be best seen from a distance – let’s say from the audience at the border of stage. Just then the only possible final strikes with its’ fatality: the solitude. And this terrible chill in the soul which is impossible to warm up.
An excellent though horrifying performace (…)
Lilia Łada, “Tutej.pl”, 06.12.2007
We are passing by each other in order to meet again. We are cannoning into one another. We are waiting for these collisions. Just like we are waiting for events in our lives. And for love. When it’s not there – there is nothing (and this time it really is not a political joke.About all this and not only about this talks „36,5ºC”, the performance of Magdalena Reiter. Her choreographic, very sensual vision was expressed by the Polish Dance Theatre dancers.
– Warm me up – says to the audience a lonely person at the beginning of „36,5ºC”. – For my body thirty six and a half is just enough, my soul requires much more – (…). Later on there is just dance: heedful, pulsating, ecstatic. At times it allows the viewer to “take off”. But this is a trap. Magdalena Reiter decoys the spectator to an easy amusement, a cheap flirt, just in order to show a tearing solitude in the final. That kind of solitude which every man is afraid of.
Marta Kaźmierska, Gazeta Wyborcza, 11.12.2007
MAGDALENA REITER 