Warpscapes

In the European painting tradition landscapes are always framed via their relation to humans. They are displayed as the scene of communal rites, as gardens and forests that belong to a place and make it a homeland, as commodities that can be appropriated. From the immediate surroundings to the shores of the continent and beyond the European landscape paintings give a distorted image of the environment, resulting in a society that has a distorted relationship to the world. "Warpscapes" engages with these distortions, pursues them, exaggerates them and thus attempts to newly open up to nature in an artificial way.

Landscapes are created on stage, which the dancers inhabit as not-only-human creatures, which they design and examine, which they observe and in which they disappear. Discovering distortions and amplifying them, warping is the central method in order to approach the constant and contradictory changes in the living world – without having to negate its artificiality.

Sergiu Matis

Sergiu Matis is a Romanian choreographer living in Berlin since 2008. He created dance performances such as "Neverendings" (2017), "Hopeless." (2019), "Extinction Room" (2019), "Unrest" (2021), "Drang" (2022) and "Blazing Worlds" (2023). His work has been presented at festivals throughout Europe.

His dance practice can be understood as a tireless search in physical and digitalized archives. His performances provoke intense experiences that break with expectations, point to a new understanding of dance and reflect the complexity of our time.