text: Ani Vaseva, Boyan Manchev, including fragments by E.T.A. Hoffmann
German translation: Elvira Bormann
English translation: Katerina Popova
apparatuses and digital programs: Stefan Donchev
music: Christophe Petchanatz / Klimperei
sound design: Angel Simitchiev
knitted costumes: Catherine Metodieva, Ilga Medarska
video: Ivan Nikolov

with: Leonid Yovchev and Catherine Metodieva

premiere in Sofia: 16 and 17 June 2022, Swimming Pool
premiere in Berlin: 26 and 27 August 2022, ACUD Theater

Аtlantis is dedicated to Е.Т.А. Hoffmann – the author, the composer, the uncanny (Unheimlich) character – as the ultimate effect of his own oeuvre. The Hoffmann mania that lasted two centuries, that has rewritten subterraneously the history of modern literature and music, is a direct result of the Hoffmann-effect: the effect of destabilising the Real, of extracting the More-than-the-Real from the “banal” tissue of the real. Hoffmann the uncanny Subject, faces his Double: the uncanny Real.

Atlantis – Hoffmann’s utopian place, the Promised Land of the More-than-the-Real, is where Hoffmann’s weird world – a world where “аll that is solid melts into air”, indeed – materialise. The Hoffmanniana and the Hoffmann mania have both their origin there.

In Atlantis Metheor Collective mobilises its signature theatrical contra-techniques. Thus, Hoffmann-the-Master-of-the-Uncanny will serve as the protagonist of a theatre oratorio unfolding a fantastic theoretical proposal, thus plunging into Hoffmann’s upside-down world.

The performance is created with the support of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sofia Municipality and National Culture Fund of Bulgaria.

 

Trailer

 

Cast: Svetlana Yancheva, Leonid Yovchev, Valentin Ganev, Veselin Mezekliev, Katrin Metodieva, Greta Gicheva, and Rosa

 

Premiere: 10 December 2021, Lumiere Cinema, Sofia

 

Daruma is devoted to chance – to the miracles that the wind can bring, to the unknown, to the ways in which events miraculously and unexpectedly coincide. “Fluke” or “luck”, the inevitable risk of chance – these are the forces that remain unpredictable, but which affect us most strongly. They are the knot in which the logical and the miraculous intertwine. When chance unfolds in its most exciting, most beautiful forms, it also unlocks the ability to trace causal relationships where they aren’t apparent at first glance and where they don’t always take the forms that are familiar to us.
The title of the video performance Daruma is inspired by the essay “Kaze daruma” by the Japanese choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata. The Japanese word kaze means “wind” (as in “kamikaze” – literally, “divine wind”); translated, the title of the essay reads “Wind Daruma”. “Daruma” is the Japanese pronunciation of “dharma” and comes from the name of round wooden ritual dolls that usually depict Bodhidharma. When purchased, the Daruma doll has only one eye painted. The new owner makes a wish and when it is fulfilled, paints in the other eye. Daruma is dedicated to the balance between chance and predestination, to desire, to the miracle, and to Rosa.

Daruma is a Metheor production supported by Sofia Municipality, Bulgaria’s Ministry of Culture, and ЕU-Japan Fest. In 2021 Metheor was supported by the National Culture Fund.

director: Ani Vaseva
theory: Boyan Manchev
music: Christophe Petchanatz / Klimperei
apparatuses and digital programs: Stefan Donchev
costumes, concept: Ani Vaseva
costume, making: Darina Stoimenova
knitted costumes: Ilga Medarska
video: Ivan Nikolov

With Leonid Yovchev, Katrin Metodieva, Greta Gicheva, Monika Vakarelova, Elina Karastoyanova, Budin Karastoyanov and Diana.

 

 

A Day That Has Everything is an element of the Ex corpore project, part of the Legacy Program of Plovdiv - European Capital of Culture 2019, implemented with the support of EU-Japan Fest, the Culture Program of Sofia Municipality, the Ministry of Culture and Swimming Pool.

 

A Day That Has Everything

This could be a very ordinary day. A stretched, slow afternoon in which you can watch the play of lights and shadows, drink tea, read. It is also a day of miracles - a small event produces a series of unexpected events. And in these events the main thing is joy. The joy that you are able to feel the time passing, the joy that the world with its banality and brutality has temporarily withdrawn and the possibility of freedom, of carelessness, of play is opening. A day of carefreeness and depth, a day of lightness and seriousness. On such days it is wonderful to be alive.

"A day that has everything. A day when anything can happen" - this is how Boyan Manchev describes the perfect day. This is a day conatining an open opportunity. A day that has everything without being completed or finished, without being dead. A day when life feels completed without major cataclysms. A day of joy.

There is time full of many events, a time that flies away in a blink of the eye, a time when things pile on top of each other and you just sort of deal with them. And there is time allowing you to feel it, to think it. Slowly running time. Closed in itself time. Time without need for external stimuli, when the senses themselves sharpen and bristle, ready to take over the world. This time is enough, it has everything. Such moments are the morning moments of silence, when shadows move slowly along walls and floors. These are the afternoon moments of laziness, when joy and desire arise suddenly. 

                                                                                                                            Ani Vaseva

 

Trailer

 

Recording