In front of the ruins of a perished civilisation that appear in impressive film images, four humans are looking for their way and their destination, discovering the power of empathy.

Four people, setting out. They are still young and though every one of them is carrying his own history, his own dreams and experiences, hopes and deceptions. They are on their way, people on their trails through a barren world. Displaced and looking for shelter, prisoners of their own, without orientation, exhausted. Often their advancing seems to be without any sense: What is their destination? Is there any destination at all? What keeps them going are their memories and their desires. And then there still is – against all probability, despite conflicts and competition – the fractious power that emerges from empathy.

The editta braun company presents a young team in a play that seems to have fallen out of time. A background of migration may be suspected, the atmosphere evoking eastern countries, the Balkans, Asia Minor, in a vague past or even in future, on a depopulated continent. Because everything is happening in front of impressing pictures which have been taken out of Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s documentary Homo Sapiens showing deserted industry landscapes, traces of a perished civilisation where nature has gained the upper hand for a long time already.

Against this background empathy is not an expression of noble human kindness but vital: The four are depending on each other – like all of us are nowadays in a world that has grown small end extremely cross-linked.

"Surrounded by a team of artists from Poland, Slovenia, Mozambique, Austria, France and Germany, I send four people on a journey. Although these people are obviously homeless, it is not about migration: We examine the group dynamic processes of a bunch of people who move through an apocalyptic world. And they manage that no one gets lost.

The films of the Greek Theo Angelopoulos (The Travelling Players) have enchanted me since the early 1980s and remain anchored in me ever since. I perceive his pictorial language "choreographically" and, in its diverse association depth, is close to the arts of dance.

Then I discover the acclaimed science-fiction documentary Homo Sapiens of the Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter, who takes us into a world without people, yet landscapes with human remains. Industrial ruins, abandoned human habitats, recaptured by nature, overgrown. Powerful images."  (Editta Braun)

«trails»

premiere: 23 October 2018, tanz_house Festival Salzburg

dance, performance, research:

Paula Dominici, Kamil Mrozowski, Jerca Rožnik Novak, Ornilia Ubisse

artistic direction, choreography: Editta Braun

composition: Thierry Zaboitzeff

dramaturgy: Gerda Poschmann-Reichenau

lightdesign: Thomas Hinterberger

choreographic assistance: Anna Maria Müller

co-directing: Arturas Valudskis

photography: Bettina Frenzel

film-material: excerpts of Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s film Homo Sapiens

coproduction: ARGEkulturSalzburg

production: Austrian Ministry of Culture, City of Salzburg, Region of Salzburg

reactions on «trails»

"Four young, very interesting dancers: Paula Dominici, Kamil Mrozowski, Jerca Roznik Novak and Ornilia Ubisse. Exhausted bodies, dread, memories, hopes dwell in them. Abruptly the spell breaks, from despair to a frothing zest for life. Geyrhalter's overwhelming images - a cave, above a rectangle of white sky shimmers. The freedom, the danger, a dancer storms off, the three others catch their jump.

(...) No easily consumable, a good and necessarily disturbing prelude with Tanztage-Labor". (Christian Pichler, Oberösterreichisches Volksblatt)

"It is an emblematic performance, carried by expressive images, whose maelstrom gradually unfolds and occasionally demands patience from the viewer, letting him feel being lost and desorientated himself. Where no path leads to the goal, compassion seems to be the last resort. Conclusion: A visually powerful, thoughtful performance about a journey through a nothing that tells of the value of humanity and cohesion."

(Karin Schütze, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten)

„No destination. Just a trail. Life.

In situations that are so big and mighty that words can’t describe what’s happening to a human being, only dance is able to express the impact of emotions, thoughts and feelings.

In “trails” the choreographies are based on such inner incidents in such a delicate and wise way that they manage to express those nameless feelings. The four dancers, in defiance of their youth, have at their disposal a broad range of means in moving and expression. The extremely sensitive and intelligent montage of stage action combined with the pictures of abandoned landscapes from Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s film and Thierry Zaboitzeff’s theatrical music creates the magic theatre moment far from any pettiness.”

Myrto Dimitriadou, theater director, founder of Toihaus Theater Salzburg

"A melancholically wonderous piece of art, pertaining beauty, sorrow and fear. (…)

A breath-taking dance piece of great merging visual and conceptual patterns that opens up the heart and mind to fresh questions of the world, and our place in it."

Mikkel A.P. Smith, writer (Oslo)

"Nikolaus Geyrhalter‘s deserted landscapes affect us deeply – particularly because they are not scenarios of a possible future but pictures of an already existing present. The dancers in persistent dynamics, in constant locomotion, without knowing if there is any destination. Again and again they hold onto each other, carry one another through extreme situations – external and internal ones. Is there hope for any arrival at all in a world which we are just yet ruining? Or will we find a togetherness that may empower or possibly even save us?"

Angela Czech, journalist

"A landscape in black and white, hazy. Long lasting shots taken out of a film. Characters enter, wayfarers, some are hesitating, others determined, some clueless, as it seems. Silhouettes.

When did the music start, so unagitated, so unreal? So coherent.

The journey the four persons on stage are making seems to be a trip to their own self, to their desires and unaccomplished wishes. They look for community and move on. Consistently accompanied by images of desolation and vanishing. And suddenly they seem to be caught in Platon’s allegory of the cave without any way to escape. And the spectators turn into shadows in this allegory.

A touching evening. The public walks out in ease, reconciled with the narrowness and fugacity of our existence."

Christa Hassfurther, theater director