NATIONAL PREMIERE
For three decades, a British company has been pushing the limits of movement. Called Motionhouse, it reigns supreme in exhilarating athletic dance. Founded in 1988 by husband-and-wife team Louise Richards and Kevin Finnan MBE, who continue today as Executive Director and Artistic Director respectively, the company captivates audiences worldwide. Renowned for its spectacular performances, where action and dynamism aim to surprise viewers, defying gravity and evoking a sense of daring, Motionhouse blends contemporary dance, theater, circus, and acrobatics. The result is an effervescent and poetic mix. Carrie Seidman, critic for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, aptly notes that “Motionhouse’s works ignite thought as much as they mesmerize the eye.”
Oriente Occidente audiences will remember the popular Block from two festivals ago and will not want to miss the new Captive, which will be staged in two different squares in Rovereto. Created for four performers trapped in a large metal cage, Captive draws inspiration from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem Der Panther. Like Rilke’s panther, confined in a cage and displayed to the public in the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris, Kevin Finnan—choreographer of the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games—transposes the experience of captivity onto the human condition, depicting how people, caught in daily life, can feel trapped. From the moment an unsuspecting individual is confined and isolated, free and wild spirits must find new ways to express themselves. The performance captures this through an intricate combination of aerial dance, performed within, on, and around a metal structure that resembles a cage.
motionhouse.co.uk
