Press Kristóf Szabó
‘IN THE LAND OF FLYING CUBES‘
IN ‘LICHT’ KRISTÓF SZABÓ describes the desire for forms in a fragmented world
‘(…) A man and a woman. Both dead, stabbed. This is the starting point of Kristóf Szabó’s performance ‘LICHT’ (‘LIGHT’) in the Orangerie. Once the woman says that she wants the man to kill her. At the same time she feels the desire to kill him. They circle around each other with animalistic movements, she sends out bird-like sounds. Sometimes their shadows merge, but immediately separate again.
Animations of the Hungarians Ivó Kovács und László Zsolt Bordos are projected on the back wall of the Orangerie, and sometimes on the bodies of the performers. Cubes are flying through wincing landscapes in the rhythm of electronic music (Lothar Voigtländer). Wheels form a futuristic machine like in silent films. Finally, a city arises out of geometric forms, urban canyons develop, continuously stay in motion. In the fragmented world, the will to abstract form is a last attempt to provide meaning; in the truest sense of the word, to find a proper form also for one’s own life.’
Stefan Keim for Akt – professional monthly for theater and dance Cologne – September 2009
‘Mysticians from all epochs argue that the divine is conveyed in manifest matter, rationally in geometrics. But where in our „concrete jungle“ can the divine be found? Lonely the current human lives in his cage based on geometric forms. The director Kristóf Szabó and all participants have really created Art!’
Ursula Breckner for SpiriTV – August 2009
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Fairy tale for adults
Kristóf Szabó / F.A.C.E Ensemble presents ‘THE MOMENT – the geometry of heads‘ in the Orangerie: a worth seeing excursion into the world of myths with magical words and gloomy images which unsettle and enchant us.
The creature, as we can learn in the programme, is at home in 3000 worlds. The Hungarian choreographer Szabó, who lives in Budapest and Cologne, is also a writer and since recently a member of the network of choreographers ‘Barnes Crossing’, invented it for his artistic fairy story ‘Wah’. His basic thesis is: Only by the abandoning of the Ego and unification with another we can get over earthly dualism and reach happiness. You do not have to share this idea, which blends a late ancient, gnostic view of the world and medieval mysticism, without enlightening their impacts on the occidental history of thought. Nevertheless, the team around Szabó impressively manage to give shape to this mystic thesis of unification through sound, light, video as well as variable stage design sculptures; because the single elements merge into an artistic form which embraces far more than the simple description ‘TheatreDance’. Over and over, we experience truly magical moments, never seen before on Cologne´s stages. We would have liked to linger still in this mysterious gloomy-gorgeous world.
Christina-Maria Purkert for akT –professional monthly for theatre and dance Cologne, January 2012
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BLISS – first performance at VIII. SOMMERBLUT Festival Cologne
‘Szabó´s staging is eventful and moving – in postmodern tradition, he blurs the boundaries between classical theatre, video, image and dance.’
Vanessa Stahl for Campus-Online, May 2009
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