Recoil performance group

”When I and my species have eventually gone from this earth, my worm-eaten furniture will be left like haunted sculptures in damp, slimy, lush or barren landscapes. Future creatures will crawl on the archaeological objects. In the future I will either be extinct, everything buzzing along, or I will have done an evolutionary quantum leap in order to adapt to the dying planet, I will have sacrificed a plethora of species as I overtake them; lost peacocks, zebras and storks.”
Mass – bloom af Ida Marie Hede

A choreographic installation on decay, decomposition and death by awarded choreographer Tina Tarpgaard with a text by acclaimed author Ida Marie Hede Thousands of plastic-eating worms are the tiny heroes of the work as they literally digest the installation. In collaboration with the performer, they break the framework for recoil’s choreographic work in this choreographed decomposition. A six hour performance over three days that transforms the plastic habitat of the work into organic debris.

MASS-bloom explorations invite the audience to come close to the perishability, decomposing and death that all living beings on the earth are confronted with and eventually become part of. A single human dancer and thousands of mealworms inhabit a transparent plastic dome. In this unlikely (bio) logical combination of greenhouse and mausoleum, we are reminded of the basic circumstances of life; to sleep, eat, defecate and multiply; the living and the dead, the urge and the will. The relationship between what perishes and what remains is central to the speculative nature of the work – the visions of a future of extensive man-made environmental change. The work reconsiders a culture of consumption and superior self-esteem, which are some of the less flattering characteristics of humanity.

Choreographer: Tina Tarpgaard
Performer: Hilde I. Sandvold
Scientific research and installation design: Pei-Ying Lin
Writer: Ida Marie Hede
Technical design and engineering: Minshu Huang
Sound design: Søren Knud
Dramaturgical consultants: Inge Agnete Tarpgaard & Ida Larsen