Arms that never knew me – Milan Tomášik

O predstavi

PREMIERE: 28 February 2024, Cankarjev dom Ljubljana

Artistic direction and choreography:Charlie Brittain & Milan Tomášik
Performance: Milan Tomášik
Music and Sound Design: Jakub Mudrák, Eduardo Raon
Lighting Design: David Cvelbar, Janko Čief
Set and Costume Design: Jasna Vastl

Production: Flota, zavod, Murska Sobota (Slovenija)
Co-production: Cankarjev dom, Flota, Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Financial support: Ministrstvo za kulturo RS, Mestna občina Ljubljana
Supported by: Scenario Pubblico (Catania, Italy), Hrvaški kulturni dom (Rijeka, Croatia)
Created as part of a residency at Divadlo Štúdio tanca (Slovakia)

About the performance:

Arms that never knew me focuses on the interplay between real-time being, and the realisation of infinite movement possibilities. Performance is a connection between the past, present and future; an endless junctional moment where there is no beginning or end. Tomášik employs preacceleration: a movement potential colouring the way movement becomes, including the unseen vibrations. The work considers how pastness envelops futurity, bleeding time into movement and movement into time, continually recomposing itself along new curves, images and intensities. Ever-unfolding possibilities and potentialities actualise as the performer explores the complexity of presence; the simultaneity of a movement as an end-action as much as vibration, or pulse. The work is informed by Erin Manning’s process philosophy, where movement is always on the verge between real and metaphysical – ‘a quasi-virtual experience’: actual because all steps actually take place, virtual because all the microperceptions of pastness and futurity are enveloped in the becoming-movement. The performance is a poetic journey where Tomášik’s unique performativity is threaded through the multiplicities realised by the collaboration and collision of sound, scenography and light. Each element interconnects in multiform possibilities, as they contribute to the collective body-becoming. The power of Tao is sound. The potential of Tao is silence. Arms that never knew me is a real-time sensing of the thin veil between what is and all that could be.

Official trailer by August Braatz Adrian film:

According to Niko Goršič, a theater director and dance critic, Arms That Never Knew Me received recognition in three categories for the year 2024:

“The Best Dance Event of the Year”

“The Best Dancer of the Year”

“The Best Set Design and Costume of the Year”

more on: https://www.paradaplesa.si/na-spici/igralec-performer-reziser-pisec-novinar-urednik-fotograf-likovni-in-plesni-kritik-niko-gorsic-vrhunci-slovenskega-baleta-in-sodobnega-plesa/

Reviews:

“So what taste does Arms That Never Knew Me leave? It by all means enables the synaesthesia of the spectator’s experience in the sense that, in moments, we can hear movement, see sound, taste arms, while, on the other hand, our experience of one on the intersection of the duality of equal authorial views is traced as a precise study of the life of a dancer (who can be both a general and a concrete one), who repeatedly, with every new project or day when they step in front of the audience, pass their experience into other people’s arms, which can either embrace and cradle it or reject it.”
Andreja Kopač ⏐ Delo ⏐ ★★★★★

“The performance indicates the topic of a relationship primarily by means of the gaze […], with the quality of his gaze being different every time. In the first part, the encounter of the gazes is quite commonplace, in the second, we encounter “crazy eyes”, while, in the third, his gazing face is actually a projected image of (another one of) his face(s), which, in a visually fantastic way, rounds off our journey into the multiplicity of the body.”
Jaka Bombač ⏐ Sigledal

“The concept of the performance is intricately designed, including its framing, as it follows the authentic execution of a profound experience, leaving enough room for the viewer for reflection.”
Daliborka Podboj ⏐ Parada plesa

“Through the synergy of movement, text and light, the performance brings a poetic and philosophical insight into the fluidity of movement and space, but also into movement as a process of self-realization.”
“The final scene, where Tomášik merges with the projection of his own character and completely disappears from the scene, which is taken over only by the play of spotlights, breaks the boundary between the physical and virtual body.”
Jelena Mihelčić ⏐ Plesna scena.hr