THE SPACE IN BETWEEN | participatory performance

THE SPACE IN BETWEEN is a participatory performance, produced and managed by the choreographer Iskra Ivanova and the specialist in cultural studies Svetlozara Hristova. This is a collaboratively- created performance based on research, improvisation and interaction with the audience. The performance THE SPACE IN BETWEEN is concerned with the exploration of the theme of communication with one another in the context of the contemporary consumption-based world. The research and artistic efforts of the participants are oriented toward a re-evaluation of the body as an enigmatic world, as an intricate supersensitive system getting involved in a spectrum of interactions with the outside world and the other human being. The performance aims to reconstruct through performing mean the complete presence of a body in the world. The starting point of 3- month devising process was a series of discussions, concerning some key contemporary philosophical discourse notions and categories such as “a body” /corporeal aspects/, “space”, “encounter”, “togetherness”, “the other”, etc. The textual element in THE SPACE IN BETWEEN has been invented by the participants themselves during the collaborative process. It is based, on the one hand, on preliminary conducted experiments and researches within the physical exercises, and on the other hand, on personal biographical fragments. The performance has extremely frugal scenography and seeks to focus the audience's attention on the performer`s body and its vast potential to translate signs from the reality and to transform back the messages into itself... into its inner space. The music in the piece comes literally from the Universe - during the entire performance sounds the Symphonies of The Planets which have been recorded of space flight of Voyager 1 and 2, and there are only a few moments that we hear the recordings of the breathing of the performer. The spectators are active partners of the artist; they play an important collaborative role during the performance. After the first part of the piece, everybody from the audience receives from the performer a card with a task and he/she is kindly asked to act when his/her place number is displayed on the screen. For around 20 minutes, the stage becomes a place for encounters with the performer... sometimes we have the feeling of a deep connection between them, sometimes it's seem nothing happened. In this simple game, the participant-spectator has a​ unique opportunity, both for himself and for the others, to bring more awareness into the power of the present moment. From the spectators-viewer`s point of view, the stage seems to be unfolded - people there try to say something, try to escape from something, try to stay strong in something... people there represents a very sensitive live organism. The aim of this interaction with the audience is to unveil the millstones of the ecosystem that we all actually belong to and we all participate in with our actions and also to show how fragile this ecosystem is and how vulnerable the human beings are. THE SPACE IN BETWEEN is performed at BODY_GRAPHICS Festival For Dance And Performance (Pernik), ACT Independent Theater Festival (Sofia), Vertigo International festival for contemporary dance and alternative performing arts (Varna), and also in some alternative cultural venues in Plovdiv and Burgas.