Inspired by Adam Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve and William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy.

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From the choreographer:

To me, Adam Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve is a modern reflection of the idea of ritual. The world of rituals, which strives to open up unknown spiritual dimensions, entails contact with a reality that transcends our perception; it is a contemporary human attempt to “gain” alternative knowledge and expand the capacities of one’s body and mind. Dziady_kopia.doc is a modern-day confrontation between the human being in search of the logos of infinite knowledge, on the one hand, and time and non-material world expressed through the language of futurological technologies. Above all, Forefathers’ Eve is a narrative about the body threatened with annihilation, and an attempt to put the unknown (which contemporary culture expresses by searching for new human sciences and a deconstruction of ideas) in order.

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Forefathers’ Eve is a choreography that attempts to transgress itself: its codified structures and clearly delineated sequences. It is a pact with the impossible, which – as a result of a risky, liminal game with its own body – becomes somewhat tangible. Contemporary science and medicine know similar mechanisms, which take place in the human body, and are capable of empirically examine them in an increasingly more complete and understandable way. The research on serotonin neurotransmitters and, consequently, the expansion of the actual, short-term muscle strength, have contributed to the unique surge in the development of a number of Olympic disciplines owing to training plans developed with near-computer-like precision.

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The achievement of a higher degree of consciousness, the experience of catharsis, spiritual rapture, conscious dreaming, ruptures in the structure of consciousness, conscious out-of-body experience – these effects have been achieved across cultures through certain psychophysical practices. Perfected through the ages, they have become a natural way to expand human capabilities, both the spiritual and physical ones. In today’s world, it seems that this role is gradually being overtaken by the Internet and the rapidly development of science. One of the most intriguing among these phenomena is the evolution of augmented reality, within whose confines the human being can almost infinitely expand the scope of their body and its cognitive capacities, depending on the algorithms of the pre-programmed device.