PRODUCTION BY ARTUS – GÁBOR GODA COMPANY AND MEDENCE CSOPORT

FOX SPIRITS

ARTUS Performing Company established an art laboratory for contemporary Hungarian art, the ARTUS-STUDIO in 1997. In a huge factory area, 32 dance performers, choreographers, actors, stage and costume designers, composers, painters, architects and sculptors share a 2000m2-sized space. They share not only the space, but also their art, thus inspiring one another’s works. Originally, ARTUS were a dance theatre-based company. But the Artus performances cannot be considered as dance or theatre shows. However, over the last ten years, the Company have incorporated other art forms and new technologies into its performances. The use of the visual and audio elements, computer and video art installations, specific dramatic elements, signs beyond text often dominates movement, which of course has a certain meaning. Artus do not tell the story but is in search of it. It presents experiences emerging from fragments of mythological, biblical stories, it is abstract and intellectual at the same time, sometimes on a completely philosophical ground in the most elementary, sensitive language of movement, scene and music. 

The starting point of the performance was the fox spirits frequently occurring in Chinese tales that often take the shape of human beings and has a very sensual nature. It lifts its head in the moment of death. It crawls on the roof, amongst the roofbeams. People fear them. 
Wherever you go you will find the traces of the fox spirits. 

An installation is built taking in both the audience and the performers. The installation built from tons of wood becomes alive for the time of the performances. In the built space first the audience pass by the living sculptures, then the performers stroll amongst the audience. 

The force of Artus partly hides in the creative participation of the members of the company in the creative process. This time they had the opportunity to create freely in the built installation on the basis of the fox myths and legends of Middle-Age China. 
Medence Csoport is a group of young Hungarian interior architects, industrial and visual designers. They are striving to find a harmonious unity between nature, art and society through planning a unique environment for a new way of life. Their individual pieces of furniture, installations and interiors are designed with respect to the environment and nature. ’Our approach is an interdisciplinary one, as our work includes both craft and artistic endeavour. Architecture, performance, fine and applied arts form an organic unity in our work continuing the spirit of the Bauhaus’. The Medence Csoport’s definition of space and the environment emphasises the communication between natural materials and new technology.
The space and sculpture mark the place of the dance on one hand, and it is an analogy of the dance, its eternalised moment. And dance relieves the sculpture from its timeless and immobile state in order to give life to its inner story and dynamism. 

„(…) one of the most important performances of Artus was created, the Fox Spirits. Light, puzzling, enchanting. If you miss it you’ll regret it.’ (Ágnes Veronika Tóth, ÉS, 18 March 2005)  

„A myth is created of poetic pictures in the space, pertaining to the same as all the other religious legends: about the relationship of men and women, about birth, death, playful, haunting spirit demons and creative people breaking the magical unity of the world, aiming at rationality. (…) Fox Spirits is simply brilliant.’ (Csaba Kutszegi, Magyar Hírlap 13 March 2005)

Creator-performers: Tamás Bakó, Kati Dombi, Bea Gold, Gábor Kocsis, Péter Lipka, Andrea Nagy, Nina Umniakov 
Space: Medence Group 
Assistants: Oldal István, György Tr.Szabó 
Production assistant: Anikó Rácz 
Directed by: Gábor Goda 

Accessibility is provided in the space of the performance!

Supporters: NKA, National Dance Theatre 

Performances: 8 p.m. 16, 23, 24, 30 September, 1 October  - Artus Studio, 1116-Budapest, Sztregova u. 7. 
Booking: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , further info:  www.artus.hu 

Basic technical info:
Space requirement: 17m x 24m for the complete installation
Set-up: 3 days, set down: 1 day 
Electricity: 3 x 32A

Pictures