The music is violent, insistent and solid, coexisting with the lonely body it seeks to represent. What will it take for us to be able to meet, oppose, complement and have dialogue with each other? Mentally, strategically, physically – in a way that allows the audience to read and become involved in the work? They search together, out of the need to act and express themselves.

The production is inspired by The Rite of Spring by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), in which sacrificing oneself is an active and continual choice. You do not sacrifice yourself to death, but you continually sacrifice something of yourself in life. Just as in 2020, we sacrificed activities that generate meaning on the altar of the coronavirus, and just as we must continue making sacrifices for the sake of the climate in the future. Every one of us must renounce pleasures in order to preserve our own existence. What are we willing to sacrifice? For Sharifi, performance art is an arena for dialogue and confrontation in possible and impossible projects. It is an arena for vulnerability and attempts, for constantly performing and being evaluated, and it is an arena where we meet, in isolation and company.

Hooman Sharifi is a dancer and choreographer, and the artistic driving force behind Impure Company. He has also worked as artistic director of Carte Blanche.