LUVOSmove® - press, reviews

«Hydráos»  (2020)

"Body illusion theater" is what Editta Braun calls her latest play "Hydráos". For fifty minutes fantastic beings populate the entire audience space of the theater, bathed in cool green and blue, crawling, lying, standing, dancing, walking, forming adventurous figures with their own bodies.  It is disconcerting, fantastic and in places eerie. But fear gives way to curiosity about what the next figure might represent, allowing woman and man to immerse themselves in a delightful stringing together of aesthetic moments, listening in amazement to the masterful sounds created by Thierry Zaboitzeff, who succeeds in setting the colors green and blue to music in such a way that one cannot get enough of them. The three dancers Anna Maria Müller, Martyna Lorenc, Sonia Borkowicz succeed in the almost impossible. They dehumanize their figures so much that in the end one is surprised that real women's bodies are hidden in the shimmering costumes. All in all: another milestone in the very special career of Editta Braun.

No one has so persistently shaped the dance scene in Salzburg as Editta Braun. Her unbelievable tenacity, coupled with a very personal aesthetic, is only to be found in her. Editta Braun's pieces are always significant in terms of content and on the pulse of the times; she addresses the social abysses as well as the qualities that make us human beings in the first place: Love, fear, jealousy, loneliness, happiness and longing and much more. Beautifully moving bodies in beautiful pictures are not her thing. This has long since ceased to be enough for Editta Braun. She is one who can tell stories with bodies and movements, sometimes she even succeeds with non-movements. A great woman, who was and is formative for the dance scene in Salzburg. A truly great (body) illusionist. (Leo Fellinger in Kunstbox Nachlese, 19. 1.2020)

"An impressive study of life, of growing and resisting, of failure and new beginnings. An evolutionary story in just 47 minutes (...) An extraordinary evening. At the end a long and enthusiastic applause." (Markus Honervogt, ovb online.de, 22.01.2020)

"Dressed is the new naked ...In the dance scene, nudity on stage has long been the norm. Braun swims against the current again: In Hydráos the dancers wear full body suits." (Clemens Panagl, Salzburger Nachrichten, 17 January 2020)

«Close Up 2.0» (2017)

"What do the bodies remind me? The description of the show says lemurs. Perhaps... Moving mushrooms? Hardly. And then, I remembered a creature from Estonian literature and animations who seemed to fit perfectly. Poku. Pokus are silent and fast, strange but friendly, coy but comical. Exactly like the bodies next to the eclectic soundtracks of Cécile Thevenot.

When the mere idea of postmodern esthetics, eclectic and sometimes dissonant pinao music, contemporary coreography and the pokus meeting is intriguing then being witness to the reality of such situation  exceeds everyone's expectations and hopes. At least it did to my expectations."

Oliver Issak, theatre researcher

Kaisa, 30: "It's their third production I've seen and they still keep me surprised. Very powerful"

Mart, 41: "Beautiful! That's all. No more words needed."

Iiris, 16: "How special human body can be! How capable of... everything!"

«CLOSE UP» (2015)

„My highlight of the evening, festival and most likely one of the best dance works I will see in 2016 was Editta Braun company’s ‘Close up’. The work starts powerfuly as a writhing pile of rubble throbs to the time of AyseDeniz’s charged piano performance. Any imaginings of what lies underneath, perhaps informed by  five children and it, are surpassed. As bodiless limbs emerge from the pile, seemingly unhindered by the rigidity enforced by the rest of the skeleton, this skillful re-writing of the the female body builds a steady momentum.“ (manipulate festival blog, Christiana Bissett)

Visually, the effect of limiting the movement to hide parts of the dancers' bodies is both absorbing and unnerving. The richness of the imagery brings to mind Hieronymus Bosch's human limbs, that protrude angularly from eggs and other creatures: Braun has most viscerally brought to life the deformed and fragmented leftovers of a psyche. [ ... ]

The final encounter and touch (between dancer and musician) is satisfying, and clearly points towards a less constrained future. A gloriously tongue-in-cheek (or butt cheek on keys) piece of surreal dance invention. (TV Bomb 01.02.2016)

The body shapes created over 70 minutes by these four dancers – with lighting designer Peter Thalhamer – are extraordinary; Thierry Zaboitzeff's music is as thrilling as Gokcim's performance. And like all the best work at Manipulate, Close Up raises profound questions about the familiar shapes around us and how easily those perceptions can be disrupted, even as it also leads the pianist into an unsettling encounter with forces in her music of which she is barely aware, until they literally come to nudge her in the back.” (The Scotsman, 06.02.2016)

Across an hour, the initial impact dwindles, but the sheer stamina of the performers – and

the spurt of ensemble bopping when Michael Jackson's Billie Jean hits the keys – remains

strangely fascinating.“ (Herald Scotland 02.02.2106)

How does a dance performance and a piano concert find common ground? A pianist and a choreographer are looking for ways...(and) Surrealist Salvador Dali would have really enjoyed the result (....) The star of the evening is 27 year old pianist AyseDeniz Gockin who has gained international recognition with her inventive interpretations which link wildly different music styles. (....) a most harmonious and technically successful performance. An essential part (of the production) is provided by the outstanding lighting design of Thomas Hinterberger.

Verena Schweiger, Salzburger Nachrichten, 17.10.2015

A temperamental pianist, faceless creatures from the shadows, and the sounds which bring them to life: The impressive interaction between sound and movement fascinates the audience from the very beginning. Turkish pianist AyseDeniz and the dancers of the editta braun company tell a story with gestures, movements and dance, which becomes even more compelling because not a single word is spoken (...) Among other things the fascination of this piece arises from the space it creates and the questions it poses, questions which only can be answered in the individual imaginations of each audience member (...) Editta Braun's latest work creates a lot of space for an audience's fantasy to run riot. Most definitely it leaves a powerful impression.

Claudia Maria Kraml, DrehPunktKultur, 16.10.2015

The piece's intention - that through her playing the tragic situation of the protagonist enters the hearts of a carefully listening audience – is, without a doubt, fulfilled. You would need to have a heart of stone not to be touched.

Josef Irgmaier, pianist and composer, 16.10.2015

An alien landscape, a grand piano, a pianist. The musician concentrates, She plays. She moves herself and her audience. The landscape starts to move. It glides, it is alive. Body parts are exposed, a knee, or is it a little face? Life is awakened by the music, with the music. Mysterious creatures, monsters or aliens emerge. They shake, they flounder, they stick close to each other, seemingly astonished to be alive. They start to explore their world and each other. Staying close to the grand piano they become stronger and more confident as the music ebbs and flows around silence. The way that life outlives even the greatest silence we will all come to face.

Barbara Klein, stage director/theatre director

While musician and music ensnare each other, vexing cratures emerge. They are genderless, as their touching nudeness suggests. They slink, they crawl, they slide around the piano. They seem to adore the unsuspecting pianist, to want to be close to her. Puffing, snuffling and snorting, they nestle and roll around and up to the piano (…) The arc of suspense linking the musician's structured creativity and the seeming random movements of the teeming creatures around her challenges audiences to respond emotionally to this contradictory and indivisible interaction.

Barbara Neuwirth, writer

«planet LUVOS» (2012)

What remains is greater than man

“planet LUVOS”, the editta braun company’s fascinating dance premiere at the Bruckner Festival

The Salzburg choreographer Editta Braun leads us through a blue underwater world back to the origins of life. In her new piece “planet LUVOS”, she completes the round dance of surreal body worlds, which began with “Lufus” (1985) and continued with “Lufus, vol. 2”, about the dangers of genetic engineering. The viewer sinks into a blue, bubbling waterworld. The only sign that humans exist is the distant sound of a steamship whistle, somewhere far away. And a woman who suddenly finds herself in a kingdom full of strange, but peaceful beings. Seven dancers (Katja Bablick, Andrea Maria Handler, Sandra Hofstötter, Dorota Karolina Lecka, Martyna Lorenc, Marcella Mancini and Spela Vodeb) constitute this symbiotic, sensitive collective. Their legs wave in the air like anemone arms, each movement reacting as fast as lightning to the other . Their bodies lose their humanness and become entities. Naked torsi move like alien beings across the stage. These are fascinating images, a thoroughly successful illusion, underscored by Peter Thalhamer’s perfect light design and Thierry Zaboitzeff’s spare underwater sound.

The arms enfold the human being in a nearly tender way, and it willingly surrenders to the gentle embrace. What appears to be the end is a consoling dissolution of the individual into the greater whole. Long, enthusiastic applause.“ Upper Austrian News, September 29, 2012

«Luvos, vol. 2» (2001)

Precise, razor-sharp choreography provides a sense of purpose, every twitch or jerk driving the evolution of these „creatures“ from crawling, slimy monsters to free-standing animals. Ther’s a hypnotic, almost pendulum-like absorption to it which sucks you into the world of intriguing movement, bestriding somewhere between dance and physical theatre. (...)

Editta Braun should continue to be celebrated as a visionary in the fields of dance and movement; this venture offering a refreshingly intricate meditation of the versatility of the body.

TV Bomb, 6. February 2012

Austria's currently most interesting choreographer lures us with "Luvos. Vol 2" into a truly "brave new world". As if driven by invisible waves, five naked dancers lie and roll upon glowing red sand, new beings growing out of their legs. (Absolutely outstanding in technique and expression: Barbara Motschiunik, Lisa Hinterreithner, Ulrike Hager, Sabile Rositi and Mata Sakka.) Pale, crab-like creatures strive sideways through the room, find one another, mate and bear new worms from which new creatures emerge...a vision of a beautiful and erotic, yet dangerous, artificial world; a sinister (gen) manipulating game made even more compelling by the beguiling music (Thierry Zaboitzeff) and ingenius lighting (Thomas Hinterberger).

Andrea Hein in Neue Kronenzeitung, Klagenfurt, Juli 2001