Florentina Holzinger’s award-winning dance piece has caused the audience to faint in droves and leave in the middle of the performance.
The violent dance work will be seen next week in Helsinki. Nada Žgank
Austrian choreographer by Florentina Holzinger a dance piece Tanz see you in February in Finland. The third part of Holzinger’s work trilogy will be presented in the program of the Sivuaskel festival in Helsinki on February 7.
The center of the piece is the Dance Center that organizes the festival Zodiac too according to the description, improving, modifying and changing the body and conveying the experience.
The show in question is not suitable for sensitive audiences. The artwork warns that in addition to strobe lights and loud sounds, the show contains explicit nudity, blood, needles, hooks and self-harm.
The 140-minute non-intermission performance is prohibited for minors.
Florentina Holzinger’s works have made waves around the world. Nada Žgank
Previous parts of the trilogy Recovery and of Apollo they haven’t been the easiest either. Holzinger says Various Artists -website interview, that as part of Tanzia the preceding one Apollonia he was working with real blood for the first time.
– Sometimes people didn’t read the content warnings carefully or didn’t know they were sensitive to blood. A typical symptom was that people fainted. It created unrest in the audience, Holzinger describes to the publication.
Holzinger says in an interview that the work is meant to make the viewer doubt whether the performers really have the situation under their control all the time. However, the surprising reactions of the public cannot be controlled.
– People have repeatedly fainted over the years. Sometimes they pass out in droves, Holzinger says and compares his works to horror movies: the viewer knows that it is not going to be a relaxed and enjoyable experience.
The work describes, among other things, mutilation and vomiting. Eva Würdinger
Tanz premiered in Vienna in 2019. When the work arrived in London in the summer of 2023, The Guardian described Tanzia in his assessment as provocative and offensive, but also funny and even beautiful.
According to the newspaper Tanz includes, among other things, mutilation, gynecological examination and vomiting.
– Some of the audience at the premiere walked out – a couple of men sitting in the front row left rather unceremoniously before the situation could get even remotely humiliating – but those who remained may have felt as if they had passed some kind of ancient and unholy ritual, The Guardian’s assessment says.
Tanz has been awarded as the best performance of 2020 by Theater Heute theater magazine. It has also received the Austrian Nestroy Award for Best Direction.