the ballet of Paul Ace and Sunny Lovin
Paul and Sunny perform a series of actions according to a pre-described order
holding meeting
talking building throwing
sitting
standing hitting
waiting pushing
stamping
drumming hanging looking
dancing separating
The Ballet of Paul Ace and Sunny Lovin is the 3rd stage work by Raul Maia and Thomas Steyaert. As in all of their previous works, non-representational physical communication plays an essential role in the performance. Their artistic practice aims to develop forms of physical behaviour without the use of recognizable gestures.
This 3rd work introduces objects as mediums that mediate the communication and become animate as a result of the physical dialogue. Maia and Steyaert perform their dialogues within static and restricted physical configurations. Each configuration seems to impose a new form of language. The sum of these different physical languages outlines an absurd and puzzling experience.
concept and performance: Thomas Steyaert / Raúl Maia
sound: Peter Kutin / Raul Maia / Thomas Steyaert
stage design: Raúl Maia / Thomas Steyaert
light design: Sabine Wiesenbauer
costume design: Irma Saje
production: Clélia Colonna
Financed by: stadt Wien (MA7) and bundeskanzleramt österreich kunst und kultur
Co-produced by: WUK and Im-Flieger
Supported by: Wild Card programme as part of Life Long Burning project
Residencies: Jatka 78 (CZ) Tala Dance Center (HR), Espaço do Tempo (PT), Sítio / casa do Pombal (PT), Rivoli Teatro Municipal do Porto (PT), Im Flieger (AT).
reviews
Der Standard (Austria)
english (google translation)
Vienna - Two men in a chirping, scraping, crackling parallel universe that reaches deep into "our" reality. Like a live projection, the stage flickers into this other
world as Paul Ace and Sunny Lovin do work we can only dream of. Because the two work in fantastic spatial displacements of communication
The Ballet of Paul Ace and Sunny Lovin by Raúl Maia and Thomas Steyaert, is currently being premiered in the large hall of the Wiener
Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus Wuk. Maia and Steyaert seem to confirm the insight of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann that not humans but only
communication can communicate. Therefore, her characters Ace and Lovin could be understood as "communicationauts" who have maneuvered themselves
into something that they seem to have an excellent command of - namely to make visible the "system" (Luhmann) that is still puzzling today, which fuels or
slows down society, overheating or let it cool down and then seem to drift away calmly again. Imaginatively Deconstructed Pathos neither Ace nor Lovin are
incarnations of characters, but rather comparable to the strange entities projected from the depths of the viewer's unconscious by the intelligent
ocean-planet in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. In the piece, the performance takes on the irritating game of the planet. With Steyaert, Maia has created an allusion
to space from slats, panels and mats. This is supplemented with sound materials (collaborator: Peter Kutin) and pulled by a light by Sabine Wiesenbauer
whose disturbingly seductive colours and desert blackouts give the impression that the audience is sitting in front of a live Fluxus experimental film. However,
The Ballet of Paul Ace and Sunny Lovin is neither theory-heavy nor ironic. On the contrary, the two adventurers keep flashing the joke that is an essential
part of the uncanniness of communication. In doing so, they dissect the pathos of their masculinity, which is involved in handicrafts and building, with a
wealth of selected ideas. The landscape of objects created in brilliant dramaturgy allows a dazzling spectrum of associations to flourish in the audience.
Even the Solaris planet makes an appearance: in the form of a foil-wrapped ball that Ace and Lovin play with from time to time. Especially when their faces
are temporarily transformed into staring masks by glued-on paper eyes.
(Helmut Ploebst, January 19, 2018).
- web sound the ballet of paul00:00