Layers of meaning in Baboró show for children and adults
The dance show Tetris from Dutch dance company Arch 8 has been performed in more than 60 countries across the world in the past decade and “everywhere we play it, there’s laughter in the same places”, says its creator, choreographer Erik Kaiel.
Tetris is on its way to the Baboró International Arts Festival for Children this month, the first time Erik’s company has performed here. However, he has visited previously as a tourist, with a friend who lives in Kilkenny – on that occasion he visited the Aran Islands and took in a hurling match.
Now he’s back with Arch 8 and Tetris, a show in which four very physical dancers explore how people connect with each another and form communities. The dancers investigate how people build private languages to communicate and they invite the audience to enter this world.
Tetris is billed as being “for the kids who can’t sit still, for the ones who like to climb walls, and those who can imagine further than they can see”.
There’s lots of laughter everywhere Tetris goes, because the show’s humour transcends borders, he says.
“There are two men and two women in it, with one big guy and a smaller guy. The smaller guy will sit on something and the big guy will push him off and they all laugh at that.”
It sounds simple, but everyone recognises this kind of behaviour, he adds. And there’s lots of subtle humour too, because “you have to impress the parents as well as the kids”.
Tetris is named after the video game which was invented in the 1980s but it’s an inversion of the game.
“You want kids to go and play and interact so it was fun to make dance performance and name it after a video game.”
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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