Although there are several ways of perceiving ‘wrestling’ in terms of movement, the interest is located in the way the performed actions are classified. If with wrestling we usually refer to the escalating conflict and consequently the discharging of an action, the choreographer Anastasia Valsamaki urges us to see the transition from intensity to repression and its reversal in a ‘struggle’ that does not divide winners from losers. The reference to wrestling, therefore, is a way of investigating the movement beyond the corporeality of the wrestlers and the theatricality of the event; by possibly combining the ‘studiousness’ of the choreographic score with its fun and exaggeration.

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In this peculiar struggle, five dancers – as a group but also as a quirky ensemble – try to bring together a priori contrasting elements: the initiating explosiveness with the awkwardness of a pause, the refueling of the physical frenzy with the suspension of relaxation, the completion of a pattern that constantly re-articulates by changing its composition. Ultimately, if the goal is to remain ‘in the game’ by constantly inventing new rules, then the fight comes as a promise to renew what keeps us still in the game, even if, momentarily, every evident goal seems to have failed.

 

 

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