BODY SHOTS.

A vision of human existence.

They pull the rug from under our feet, cause discomfort, alienation, if not even disgust. Anthropomorphic beings, artifacts, hermaphroditic creatures of ensouled and unsouled, both human organism and machine – intimate and human and, at the same time, as a dead object that seems radically strange. Opposite to her, our own body suddenly appears to us just as alien and constructed.

BODY SHOTS investigates the narrow boundary of perception between these artificial beings and us and designs an almost human-like substitute body. What remains is a vision of human existence and the question what our human being is all about.

With BODY SHOTS, CocoonDance continues its production series of deconstructing bodies such as VIS MOTRIX and the search for the “unthought” body.

Press clippings

Impressive Dance Performance. Human or Machine? [Heading]

The spectators experience over 45 minutes (…) an extraordinary performance with a remarkable canon of movement. Extremely measured slow-motion movements and angular android-like movements alternate with unconventional, crawling, rocking, animal and insect-like movements. (…) An excellent body control of Fa-Hsuan Chen, Martina De Dominicis, Álvaro Esteban López, Marin Lemic and Eleonora Vrdoljak, who brilliantly implement the ingenious and fascinating choreography by Rafaële Giovanola. …

CocoonDance always succeeds in questioning what has just been seen. Do you watch and experience a living, soulful human being, a machine or a fusion of human and machine? The featured physicality raises questions about the familiar, the alien, the living, the object / artificial body, about self-perception, self-determination, consciousness, will and programmed functioning. And of the development of incarnation and being human. Exciting and lingering. (Christian Seibt, Neue Presse Hannover, accessed: Sept. 15, 2021)

5 Performers, 1 Technician, 1 choreographer


Min. Stage: 9 m x 9 m
Duration: ca. 0:45 h

A collaboration with Zagreb Dance Center (ZPC) and Staatstheater Darmstadt.

Funded by the Doppelpass Fund of the German Federal Culture Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes), the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Federal City of Bonn, RheinEnergieStiftung.

Co-created by: Fa-Hsuan Chen, Martina De Dominicis, Werner Nigg/ Álvaro Esteban, Marin Lemić, Eleonora Vrdoljak

Choreography: Rafaële Giovanola

Composition: Jörg Ritzenhoff

Light design: Jasper Diekamp

Space, light concept: Marino Frankola

Costumes assistant: Božica Tunjić

Video, pictures: Neven Petrović

Dramaturgy: Rainald Endrass

Management: Godlive Lawani – Stane Performing Arts Management, Aurélie Martin

COCOONDANCE