MASS - bloom explorations

In a transparent plastic dome, a human female and thousands of mealworms live side by side. They inhabit a microcosmos of Styrofoam. The mealworms possess the ability to digest and decompose the Styrofoam into organic matter thanks to a bacteria in their gut. The crackling sound of the eating worms is amplified by the dome creating a strangely meditative space in which audiences are invited to explore, ask questions, touch, smell or simply contemplate.While they witness this process, audiences can listen a text which explores a landscape where the boundaries of human, insect, past and future dissolve. During opening hours, visitors are welcome to stay outside the dome or enter inside for a closer encounter with the performer and the worms and to stay for as long as they wish.

Recoil Performance Group is a company set up and directed by choreographer Tina Tarpgaard. The company earned the Danish National Prize for Performing Arts (Reumert Award) in the dance category for Frost (2010) and Living Room (2012). Their proposals generally focus on sensory universes and choreographies that revolve around a specific relationship with certain parts of the set. The interaction between the dancer and the set’s parts is a constant source of interest, often with a desire to decentralise the human being from the set. In recent years, they have concentrated on researching new formats and generating encounters between humans and non-humans, creating situations to reflect on our relationships and our place in the ecosystem.

Choreographer: Tina Tarpgaard / Performer: Hilde I. Sandvold / Science researcher and installation design: Pei-Ying Lin / Writer: Ida Marie Hede / Catalan version: Carlos Calvo, Oriol Guinart / Voice in catalan: Eva Pérez / Producer: Carlos Calvo

Supported by: Danish Arts Foundation