Moritz Ostruschnjak (DE)

In “Cry Why”, two solos merge, intertwine, become a duet and drift apart again. With Miyuki Shimizu and Guido Badalamenti, Moritz Ostruschnjak sends two dancers onto the stage together with pianist Reinier van Houdt. When they meet, inline skates become limbs, arms become legs, Alvin Curran becomes Yoko Ono and pianos become rooms. A duet of people and material that creates strange, bizarre beings, worlds and stories. Real images and stories emerge, break off, take off again. Sentimental, romantic, melodramatic elements are juxtaposed with destruction, violence and rawness. “Cry Why” plays with concreteness and abstraction, with originality and stereotype.

Ostruschnjak succeeds in tricking us without lying to us. What do we actually see in this duet? A couple, a love story, father and daughter, doppelgangers, a gender switch, a paraphrase about war or technology, a science fiction? Concertante high culture with an urban vibe? No sooner have we latched onto an interpretation than its refutation creeps up on us; while we are still indulging in Holiday on Ice, the gloom is already setting in.

The production is presented with audio description from EveryBody Access for blind and visually impaired persons.