Creeptemporary — Cie. Toula Limnaios

Wut?

Humping the floor, contorting your body, roughing up a baby, sweaty bodies. I’ll give you three guesses to identify what I am writing about today.

I know, the answer was quite obvious, contemporary dance.

Cie. Toula Limnaios is a dance organisation, based in Berlin, named after its founder and choreographer Toula Limnaios. Founded in 1996, what started with flailing arms and bending legs in Brussels is now an organisation sponsored by the Berlin Senate for Culture.

Their performances, of which there are over thirty, including Wut (“Rage”), Tempus Fugit (“Time Flies”), and The Thing I Am, are often inspired by philosophy and literature. 

“A voodoo-like relationship with a baby doll was temporarily explored, but did not progress past obvious movement choices for the portrayal of manipulation and control. 

‘Tempus Fugit’ disappointed, not due to lack of professionalism but due to lack of conceptual risk.” — Beatrix Joyce

They threw a voodoo baby around, how much more risk do you want?

Limnaios has taken inspiration from Michel Foucault’s “The Utopian Body”, Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus”, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

With these inspirations, Toula Limnaios aims to focus on existentialism in her choreography, often placing emphasis on individual human movements and emotion with absurd results before giving time to consider the human connection between individuals, again with rather absurd results.

Do I sound cultured yet?

“We don’t care about trends or fashions. We try to be authentic and honest with our work and ourselves. Dance — alert, critical and bold — which is concerned with people, made by and for people.” — Cie. Toula Limnaios

Call me a philistine, but watching the trailers, I felt nothing but a little annoyed — especially when they were scraping rocks on the floor; yeah, not sure what that’s all about –, definitely unnerved, and maybe a tiny bit constipated. Well, as an existing individual, maybe that’s how I’m meant to feel. What do you reckon?

Might go see them if I’m ever in Berlin. Could be a laugh, manic or otherwise.

Now, where’s that straitjacket?

Random Facts

· Cie. Toula Limnaios is housed in Halle Tanzbühne Berlin, an old police station that is over 100 years old.

· Cie. Toula Limnaios has won a number of awards over the years, including the George Tabori Prize and the prize of the Festival Meeting New Dance.

· You can also find by Cie. Toula Limnaios in Ireland, Ecuador, Senegal, Spain, and Venezuela.

Did you play “Clicks to Hitler/Jesus”? Comment your scores.