«long life»
The average person today lives for 72 years - a period of time in which many things fit: Growing up, dreams, love, suffering and getting old. Individual biographies in a collective history that inevitably shapes individual lives.
Trees grow older than humans, up to several thousand years. Their life is deposited in annual rings, countable only after their death, for which man is often responsible. Where do our annual rings lie?
long life reflects the duration, events and traces of a long human life with all its experience and maturity, disillusionment and bitterness, tiredness and mildness, but also with the stubborn longing for a better world. The 74-year-old actress, dancer and founder of the Toihaus Theatre Salzburg Myrtó Dimitriádou once more gets back to stage in this journey of memory through a long life. She is joined by Cat Jimenez as a carefree and life-hungry young woman. Her strength and grace make her a bearer of hope and an extended arm into the future for a long life that is coming to an end.
Designed long before the outbreak of the corona virus, the project is clearly marked by the conditions of the lockdown, which surprised the team before rehearsals began. Even before the two protagonists met in person for the first time, they met online and rehearsed with director and choreographer Editta Braun via ZOOM on the screen. The pandemic had a noticeable impact on aesthetics and the course course of rehearsals - as a restriction, challenge and opportunity at the same time.
Suitable for intimate venues: «long life» proves to be a piece for intimate spaces to create intimacy between audience and performers. However, essential requirements are: black and flat back drop, white dance floor (if possible), performing area min. 9mx9m, darkness and silence, audience frontal and a good PA.
performance, choreography: Myrtó Dimitriádou, Cat Jimenez
choreography, artistic direction, stage set: Editta Braun
composition: Thierry Zaboitzeff
light design: Thomas Hinterberger
dramaturgy: Gerda Poschmann-Reichenau
photography: Bettina Frenzel
technical assistence: Benedikt Gassner
length: ap. 50 minutes
funded by Österreichisches Bundeskanzleramt Kunst, Stadt Salzburg, Land Salzburg
Myrtó Dimitriádou, born 1946 in Greece, dancer and actress, lives and works in Salzburg. Until 2018 she was artistic director of the Toihaus Theater Salzburg, which she founded in 1984. Until the time of its foundation she had numerous engagements as an actress, director and lecturer in Austria and Germany, developed theatre projects, dance and music performances. Dance, music and movement are essential for her artistic work. In Toihaus Theater she developed her own theatrical direction - both thematically and aesthetically. A pictorial combination of dance, music, language and movement distinguishes her numerous performances and productions, which have been invited to international festivals and have received numerous awards. In 2006 she was awarded the Silver Seal of the City of Salzburg for her artistic merits. In October 2014 Myrto Dimitriadou was awarded the special prize of the board of directors of ASSITEJ Austria for her many years of outstanding cultural-political and artistic achievements in the field of performing arts for young audiences.
Cat Jimenez, born in 1986 in Cebu City, Philippines, and moved to Vienna with her family at the age of four where she lives now. With her background in fine art and street dance, she combines in her work the expressive fullness of hip-hop culture and the minimalist aesthetics of contemporary art. Since 2015 Cat Jimenez is mainly active in theater. She worked u. a. with Hungry Sharks, Cie. Gervasi, Studio Nita, Jungle Vienna and performed at festivals like Sound: Frame, Danube Festival, Danza Bolzano. https://whadupcat.tumblr.com