Soft Spot

The experimental physical dance work – quite a “performative event” as seen by critics – emerged in collaboration with Slovak dancers Martina Hajdyla and Sona Ferienčíková, and Hungarian choreographer Adrienn Hód. Through improvisation and research into corporeality, they explore together with the audience the relationship between body, personality and meaning. We don’t see the faces of the dancers until they take off their masks at the end. What defines us when we are faceless and do not express ourselves with facial expressions? What do we perceive when looking at human body? What do face, gesture, body position and movement tell us? How do we communicate with others through the body? The play with blurring human qualities questions what makes our identity and where is the concealed, sensitive, fragile soft spot within us. Soft Spot is a walk on the thin ice of theatricality and a courageous introspection in the present world of packaging. It offers us a unique space for a real shared experienc

choreography: Adrienn Hód
created and performed by: Martina Hajdyla, Soňa Ferienčíková
music: Ábris Gryllus
dramaturgy: Ármin Szabó-Székely
choreographic collaboration: Márcio Kerber Canabarro
visual collaboration: Mária Júdová
costume design: Lucia Škandíková
lights design: Tomáš Morávek
technical support: Dano Kozlík
production: Romana Packová
PR: Alice Krajčírová
graphic design: Yara Abu Aataya

producers: Lucia Šimáčková / BOD.Yngo, Jiří Hajdyla / ME-SA, György Ujvári-Pintér / HODWORKS
co-production: ME-SA, BOD.Y ngo, HODWORKS
partners: Tanec Praha, z. ú. / PONEC – taneční divadlo, Platforma pre súčasný tanec, Asociácia Bratislava v pohybe, OFF Foundation
support: Fond na podporu umenia, Medzinárodný vyšehradský fond, Magistrát hlavného mesta Prahy, Ministerstvo kultúry ČR, Štátny fond kultúry ČR
special thanks to: Csaba Molnár, Adam Czirák, Dano Raček, Petr Soukup, Mia Majeríková, Maker Keveš, Márk D. Molnár, Soňa Kúdeľová, Viera Farbiaková, Petr Goro Horký, Jenda Niesit, Mariana Novotná, Michal Šimečka, Agi Ferienčíková, Tatiana Lacová, Karol Laco, Lenka Sedláčková, Aneta Jiroušková, Adéla Jiroušková.

presentation at Divadelná Nitra supported by the Slovak Arts Council, the Nitra Self-Governing Region, The City of Nitra, SPP Foundation, LITA — authors’ society

Adrienn Hód (1975) is a Hungarian choreographer. She graduated from the Budapest Contemporary Dance School and Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy. In 1995, she founded the OFF Company. Since 2007, she leads the acclaimed contemporary dance group HODWORKS. In her works, she deconstructs the structures of the body, movement, space and music to reconstruct them unexpectedly. She creates intimate situations in which she provides space and confidence for dancers to open to their physicality, feelings and emotions. As a choreographer, she collaborated with key European stages and festivals (Grand Theatre Groningen, Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Jardin dʼEurope, Centre de Dévelopment Choréographique, Biennal de danse du Val-de-Marne, Trafó House of Contemporary Arts Budapest, En-Knap Group Ljubljana). As choreographer, she collaborates with a range of Hungarian theatres (e.g. Radnóti Színház, Katona József Színház) and participated in the film Son of Saul (dir. L. Nemes, 2015), which won an Oscar in the category of foreign language films. Her work earned her multiple nominations and prizes (e.g. The Rudolf Laban Prize).

In the performance – or rather a performative event Soft Spot, dancers Martina Hajdyla Lacová and Soňa Ferienčíková under the direction of Hungarian choreographer Adrienn Hód explore the fragility of their own existence. It enables the audience to sit in the space in the form of an arena and a degree of freedom in filling the space. A kind of theatre in a theatre is then part of the performance where static observers can simultaneously examine the regrouping of the audience, or rather the extent to which the audience enters the space of the visually limited personal zone. It isn’t until the very end that the dancers reveal their faces which is also a resolute negation of the previous depersonalisation.

If approaching them as objects and the stage as an exhibition space, a viewer could acquire an impression that anything is possible. Speaking body is principally a metaphor; to feel confronted, our instinct needs eye contact – with a face, or even merely a mask. Yet it is movement as a means of communication that is advanced as one of the themes by the female artists. It is an eternal inspiration with always more to be discovered within. Gesture, posture and movement that stop at the threshold of incomprehensibility and intelligibility, do not create language in the true sense of the word; choreography cannot be read in the traditional sense. What is possible, however, is to let ourselves be invited into the common space that the movement and powerful visual component create.

Lucie Kocourková: Soft Spot – Uncovering, Destabilising, Sharing [Soft Spot – odkrývaní, znejišťování, sdílení]. In Opera+ [online]. 18. 3. 2022. Available at: https://operaplus.cz/soft-spot-odkryvani-znejistovani-sdileni/