A Moment When Everything Stops

Meta Physics

(Anita Wach, Kristina Aleksova)

Physics

The Earth rotates on its axis at 1600 km/h. The speed at which the Sun moves around the Galaxy is about 792,000 km/h. The Milky Way spins at 270 km/s, and it takes about 200 million years to complete one revolution. That’s how fast we’ll be hurtling through space during the performance.

Meta

Infinite spin is the only stable state of the world we know. So is the endless return of old paradigms as brand new ones. We are subject to seemingly endless cycles. Expansionism is back. Puritanism is on the rise. Slavery never really ended. We also see the endless return of final solutions. Giant walls. Modular migrant camps. Rivieras of death. We still dream of change and everlasting peace.

Utopia

There are certainly alternatives, but they are just as certainly beyond our reach. The possibility of stopping is beyond our reality. Perhaps the communist philosopher Evald Ilyenkov was right: perhaps we can save the universe by deliberately causing a suicidal explosion. But maybe we don’t like this “optimistic” vision. And steadily, turn by turn, we move towards the future.

Poiesis of Repetition

We move in cycles – chasing, resisting, yielding. Bodies caught between force and restraint, testing the edges of their habits, the weight of inertia. Some push forward, faster, faster – others hold back, pulling against the current, one lingers at the edge of stillness, refusing the rush. Time is not given; it is measured in effort, stretched and bent by our will, a quiet defiance against the inevitable pull. Tangled in the gravity of our own desires, we trace invisible orbits, turning towards or away from something. How long before the next great shift? Who will be here to witness it? And does it matter if we keep moving?

Choreography of celestial bodies: Kristina Aleksova Choreographic narrations: Anita Wach Performed by: Loup Abramovici, Polett Kasza, Anita Wach, Kristina Aleksova Music: Eduardo Raon Objects: Matej StupicaLight design: Špela Škulj Producer: Špela Trošt Production: Via Negativa Co-production: Zavod Sploh Co organiser: Cukrarna/MGML, as part of the Performativa IV programme cycle Partner: DSPS

The original idea was conceived by Kristina Aleksova in the frame of Ventilator cycle (Zavod Sploh, 2023).