Tonic
Concept. Simone Aughterlony
Creation and performance. Nic Lloyd and Simone Aughterlony
Dramaturge. Jorge Leon
Music: Marcel Blatti
Light and Design: Christa Wenger
Production: Verein für allgemeines Wohl / Roger Merguin
Two people meet. They actually didn’t want to talk about their
problems or at least they thought they didn’t but they end up staging
and re staging their complaints, demanding some time to really search
for a decent and definitive cure. They begin executing prescribed
treatments to act as antibodies against obscure and mysterious
pathologies. The movement patterns and structures become something like
recipes for the improvement of the (in) human condition.
Through
the observation of each other’s progress they hope to find recognizable
signs of recovery. Their method to unravel and make sense of the
healing process is unruly. They encounter terrible side effects that
create diversions that in turn also ask to be treated. They are
confronted with the dubious placebo effect and ultimately, though they
won’t stop moving, failure’s urgency. It is as much about formulating
the sickness as finding a movement prescription to transform and remedy
it. In an age of anxiety will something as simple as exposure to plain
and bright colours provide some ease to our pain?
Tonic tries to imagine and test “choreographic treatments” for specific symptoms. It aims to open up a field of play whereby all known, yet to be discovered or completely fictionalized methods for a ‘healing path’ are on offer and made available (audience included) for integration and adaptation.
Co-Production
SPIELART Munich, Gessnerallee Zurich, Tanzquartier Vienna, FFT Dusseldorf, Dampfzentrale Bern, Productiehuis Rotterdam (Rotterdamse Schouwburg)