Harmonia is the second collaboration between contemporary dance group Unusual Symptoms and choreographer Adrienn Hód: “We both want to pursue our take on contemporary dance further.” Dramaturg of Harmonia and Co-Artistic Director of Unusual Symptoms Gregor Runge traces the production back to two aspects of consideration: as a professional contemporary dance company in the establishment with a share of the resources, “how could we initiate change in the existing structure to allow more representations of disabled dancers on stage?” Harmonia is also the first inclusive dance work by their creative partner, Theatre Bremen in Germany. How to make the theatre “fully accessible” is another aspect to consider. Runge’s wish to make changes from within the establishment is, however, a lifelong undertaking: “Maybe let’s start from the artistic side. Let’s create a big piece of dance that involves dancers with and without disabilities, and make the production visible.” With a penchant for challenging the norms, Hód is undoubtedly the ideal choreographer. “She loves ‘non-normative’ physicality, using the human body’s purest flow and flesh to question the established order, always with a shade of defiance,” states Runge.

“I just follow the way I work – observation comes first,” Hód observes quietly in the rehearsal room. “So warm-up has become an integral part of the performance. It carries a lot of information.” Harmonia opens with a period of stretching at its most basic. “Every morning during the rehearsal, when dancers arrived and began stretching their bodies, I would watch in silence. I love seeing people starting to concentrate and give themselves to their physicality, using and comprehending their bodies attentively.” The dancers’ individualities are evident even when they do nothing, she adds. A body in the present moment is already a sight to behold.

Warm-up is like a liminal state between being and not being watched. During the performance, dancers start off by doing warm-up on their own before forming pairs and contacting each other physically. Hód says: “Contact between bodies is the most intriguing connection. What the audience sees is somewhat like ‘creation’ or otherwise, all beyond definition.” There seems to be a sort of contention when dancers are being drawn to each other, but sometimes it is nothing but the tenderest form of comfort. The audience may find themselves asking: What is that? Something seductive? Pushing the body’s limits? The audience’s imagination can well be a kind of selfawareness. “As a dramaturg, I always keep digging for materials and exploring. But it all goes back to first creating ‘encounters’, which make possible the relationships dancers build with each other and with the space they are in.”

While “encounter” is the starting point, Hód and Runge do not stop at the dancers but extend their reach to the audience. The performance opens with a warm-up that lasts for almost an hour, an attempt to give the audience a sense of “time” and subvert the popular perception of contemporary dance. “The longer the time, the more the audience will imagine and interpret. Such ambiguity is important,” Hód elaborates. This is accentuated as all the lights are on, and audience members can see each other in addition to the performers. Such “freedom” could be scary for some. “Watching dancers of all ages and body types reveal—without holding back—their physical and mental states is like confronting certain taboos. The audience cannot help but doubt: ‘Am I supposed to watch?’” Taboo might be an exaggeration; no one is a voyeur here, but watching seems like overstepping the boundary, making one blush. “I wish to invite the audience to experience a different sense of time,” Hód remarks.

While preparing for Harmonia, Hód started from improvisation and physicality, asking dancers to mobilise their bodies in unconventional ways so that they could learn how to transform and transcend. Leisa Prowd is one of the disabled dancers. Throughout the journey, what matters most to her is the process where dancers, from complete strangers, gradually developed mutual understanding through communication: “Hód encouraged us to push our limits with some really inspiring and even provocative suggestions. Yet her purpose is not that we achieve them, but to see how the dancers interpret them.”

Once every week, the dancers would sit down to share their thoughts. “We explore how to mobilise our bodies, where we put our core or focus, and where our weakest points are. That is how we communicate, and from day one, communication has always been the biggest challenge. Some of the dancers are six feet tall, but I am just the same height as a six-year-old. It is hard for me to tell them, ‘I am not going to break; you can give me your weight,’ and so on—without using words but only my body. Yet this is what inclusion truly means because the creative process begins with ‘who we are’, from our sheer flesh and blood,” says Prowd.

As stretching ends, the second part breaks open. A heavy and strong pulse is heard, spurring the dancers on to move—their skin, muscles and bones in a whirlwind of motions. Runge says: “Against the pumping beat, the audience sees both the dancers’ uniformity and individuality. As the beat accelerates, their moves become more repetitive and vigorous as if there were a system unifying them. It feels like getting everyone ready—the dancers receiving new information and discarding the old, and the audience staying The Unbearable Weight of Life and Its Subsequent Release glued.” It all becomes so intense, to the point where no one can stand it any longer... until everything falls apart. Prowd says: “Once again, we are asking the audience to endure for a while longer. The moment we have gone all out on the floor, liberation finally dawns. I do not fancy the word ‘equality’—it is more like a celebration.”

This final celebration is a parade of solos by all the dancers. Their personalities and joy are there for all to see. Hód says: “By then, all eyes and gazes have become equal. Everyone celebrates for each other’s body—abled or disabled.” One dancer’s strength ignites the other, but no one has to copy or follow on this platform of interaction and exchange, where one soaks up what belongs to someone else before turning it into something entirely theirs, showing what they own in the most carefree moment that is here and now. “I feel sad about those among the audience who could not stay till the end. They will be missing out on the best moments of the show,” notes Prowd.

Harmonia is a creative endeavour by Hód to challenge notions of the body, contemporary dance, societal framework and the establishment. To this end, time is the very means of defying the norms. “Contemporary performances go for efficiency and speed, but what is worth pondering is that we must afford time for the ‘process’ itself,” she concludes.