Sway revolves around the common movement of swaying – the carefree energy and motion of tipping in and out of balance. In this rhythmical and adventurous solo, Andreas Hannes aims to sway between landscapes, mythical stories, musical timelines and invented histories. The protagonist transits through environments by a constant and sensual re-configuration of his body and the space. Music, lights, costumes and scenography will be accompanying partners in the storytelling and dancing.
Scenes include a dance for re-invented heritage, an ode to staying with your pain, and the creation and dissolution of rhythmical creatures that carry energies of power, fragility, inevitability and absurdity.
Figures from Greek mythology such as Sisyphus and Hermes will enter to reframe the happenings on stage.
With this show, Andreas intends to manifest a serious playfulness that aims to re-vitalize and explore personal and world histories for creating exciting futures. Audiences are invited into a peripheral entertainment that offers space for reflection and connection to a lighthearted view of dealing with ones struggles and understanding of progress.
Background
After successful group creations like Tremble with the skipping practice, and Warping Soul (c.b. Conny Janssen Danst – Dansateliers – Korzo) and Reverberated Emissions (c.b. ICK Dans Amsterdam) with the warping practice, Andreas is at a cross-road of making a step further in the development of his work.
In this solo, he wants to return to his body for incubating, opening up and re-imagining his practices and the warping practice in particular. Sway is inspired by his learnings of the recent pieces and will showcase his research and development of an exciting vocabulary and alternative movement logics, that are both conceptual and physical.
The practice of Warping
The warping* practice is intrinsically connected to the practice of continuous skipping (as in skipping down the street) that Andreas has been developing since 2017. Where the body crosses space in the skipping practice, the space crosses the body in the warping practice. In this inversion, the body moves within a space that is already moving, revealing an aerodynamic environment. The warping manifests in the opening and bouncing of the joints in (micro) gravitational falls, in order to push and pull the body in a multidirectional space. While utilizing techniques and materials from ballet, folk, hip-hop and jazz, Andreas revisits, suspends and reconfigures already existing movement materials in order to energize, sense and extract potential for new stories and ways of moving.
*warp = to bend or turn for the original direction or course
ANDREAS HANNES
Andreas (1987, Greece) is an eclectic maker who explores gravity and aerodynamic forces. He uses rhythm and vibration as a source for informing and revealing the body within environments. Growing up in a musical environment, Andreas danced extensively in the
livingroom. After completing his studies in classical percussion at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki (Greece), he moved to the
Netherlands to follow his passion for film. He worked as an independent director and producer of short films and he co-founded Small House Productions, a platform for international and interdisciplinary projects (2011-2015). In 2018, Andreas graduated from SNDO (School for New Dance Development) with the performance The City, in which he showcased the practice of continuous skipping (as in skipping down the street). He won the Moving Forward Trajectory 2018 and the Young Art Support Amsterdam 2019, and produced the skipping sequel Tremble.
In 2020, he won the BNG DansPrijs and created Warping Soul, a commission from Conny Janssen Danst, nominated by Dansateliers, and in partnership with Korzo, and was selected for Aerowaves Twenty ’22. Andreas summarises his artistic work under the notion of relational, physical and metaphysical distance.
He investigates by playing with the proximities and tensions between bodies, traditions and disciplines which, at first glance, might not be considered relevant or engaging. The spectacle, entertainment, science fiction and time tenses fuel his creative force, with all the social and political implications they bring along.
Currently, Andreas is artist in residence at ICK Dans Amsterdam, where he created Reverberated Emissions (2021) with the ensemble of the company. He also collaborates with Cinedans FEST in Amsterdam as artistic director. For the next years, he partners up with Julidans Festival for developing his practice and producing and presenting new work.
