Malus

The yogi and the dancer

Shyshko based this performance on his experiences as a yoga practitioner. A practice he himself describes as an inward journey of self-reflection and connection. In contrast to the performer’s body, which is turned outwards, directing its energy towards the audience, in function of the maker’s intentions. Bringing the serene intensity of the yoga body on stage is also an attempt to break the logic of seeing and being seen. The body is struggling to stay empty, working, trembling, repeating. In the gaps between the music and the bodies, the singer and the dancer, the light and the sculpture, its own dream ‘reality’.

Dancing in the dark

In a time when we get confronted daily with uncertainty, we have become familiar with the feverish hunger of the mind to project patterns on the everyday. Visions that confirm what we think we already know about our destinies and belongings.

Malus lays bare the futility of creating and recreating ‘realities’ out of disparate ideas. The Malus apple mainly talks about this: the trembling desire to control our destiny. A descent that started with the hunger for knowledge, the demand to know ourselves, our bodies, and the world around. The apple that started both the Enlightenment and the erotic. The spiritual quest turned into spectacle the moment the need for clarity arose. In that process we became visible to ourselves, and at same time estranged from our surroundings.

An attempt to reconnect with ourselves

In Malus we experience the attempts of the human body to reconnect to itself, to master time and circumstances. Malus is not so much a comment as it is a meditation on our times. A slice of time, an invitation to take stock of what we are made of. What we desire to see when we look at what is right in front of us.

Interview with Igor Shyshko