FESTIVAL TANEC PRAHA 2025
DIRECTION, DRAMATURGY, CONCEPT:
Sten Heijster (FI)
CHOREOGRAPHY:
Adriana Štefaňáková (CZ)
PERFORMERS:
Adriana Štefaňáková, Sten Heijster
MUSIC:
Barbora Xu, Joe Acheson
SCENOGRAPHY AND ANIMATION:
Sten Heijster
CREATIVE CONSULTANT, TECHNICAL ASSISTANT, LIGHT DESIGNER:
Francis Belte
SPECIAL THANKS:
To Bike Kitchen Helsinki for lending us the tricycle and helping with repairs.
To Evgeniia Markevich, who helped kick off the project and scouted locations in Helsinki while it was still freezing outside.
To Vytautas Bikauskas for reassuring me when I thought the projector was going to explode any minute.
To Claire Desmartin and François Destores for their loving support and storytelling advice on the animation.
To Sini Saari for taking me to various inspiring circus performances—at one of which I met Barbora Xu, whose music became a major source of inspiration for the animation.
To Timon Schapals for helping in the workshop with building the mounting plate connecting the projector to the tripod.
DURATION:
40 min
PREMIERE:
13.6.2025 Karlovy Vary
The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture.
Unusual Artist Tirip
What do you expect from a theatre performance? Sarah Baltzinger and Isiah Wilson have freed their duet from just about everything one is used to seeing on a stage. You will not be taken by impressive light design or scenography, nor is there music in the background. And yet, nothing is missing. On the contrary. MEGASTRUCTURE offers an unheard of viewing experience.
The performers elicit awe from their audiences, in fact, they don’t appear as humans made of meat and bone, rather as marionettes. It's enough to pull a string, and individual limbs and body parts begin to live their own lives, only to suddenly return to their place as if nothing happened.
The work was created in an isolated location in Ireland, far from civilisation and modern technology, and it is these, in the contemporary world unique, conditions which allowed the artists to get to the very core of expression and movement. But in the end, the fact that we are witnesses to the interaction between two human beings can be felt from their harmony, deep connection and playful humour.
This performance is a part of the international festival TANEC PRAHA 2025.
Sarah Baltzinger and Isiah Wilson have been collaborating since 2022. Already in June of 2024 they received an award in the RIDCC (Rotterdam International Duet Choreographic Competition. This was followed by a series of other awards including the XL Production Award, thanks to which they are creating a performance for Scapino Ballet Rotterdam in 2025, and another four partner awards:Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), Skånes Dansteater, Sally Dansgezelschap Maastricht, MAAS Theater En Dans. With NDT they have been collaborating through the means of workshops, laboratories and artistic projects since 2024. In the same year they became Aerowaves Twenty24 artists with the duet MEGASTRUCTURE and they performed at the Spring Forward festival in Germany.
