Hungry Sharks: Béton Brut (2022)

Saturday, 25 November 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Kino Šiška, Katedrala

Austrian collective Hungry Sharks, founded by choreographer Valentin Alfery and producer Dušana Baltić, juxtaposes architectural brutalism with urban forms of street dance in their dynamic performance Béton Brut.
Historically, the virtuoso movement of the human body has always been a medium of communal bonding and human communication, which fostered the development of various urban forms of dance that are, with the exception of France, rarely part of institutional cultural systems. Although such cultures in the USA in the second half of the twentieth century were sparked by imaginative processes of film editing and were strongly informed by means of cuts, transitions, overlaps and interruptions that required specific kinetic couplings, the African, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American dances from which such practices originated possessed certain “cinematic” qualities of movement without being stimulated by film. Until recent decades, theculture and art of dance in urban spaces and communities has remained at the fringes of cultural systems, partly because of their specific functions, partly because of the exclusivity of dance institutions. After all, much of it was created in public or accessible urban locations, provided by architectural functionalism with its large-scale flat and curved surfaces. In Béton Brut, the Hungry Sharks collective tackles an architectural parallel to their dance practice: brutalism, an architectural style and practice that spread from Britain around the world in the 1950s, when the ruined sites of the Second World War required rapid reconstruction and prefabricated housing became the norm, leaving no time to dwell on façades. Béton Brutjuxtaposes dance and selected examples of architectural objects, creating associative fields for reflection on corporeal, kinetic, spatial and, last but not least, historical and social construction. With the latter, the collective contextualises their dance culture and its movement dynamics, while at the same time pointing to the fact that neither architecture, nor construction, nor dance are devoid of reasons and stories of their own.

Idea, concept, artistic direction, choreography, texts: Valentin Alfery
Dance and movement research: Elena Bartosch, Timo Bouter, Alexander Tesch, Maëva Abdelhafid
Live sound and composition: Manuel Riegler
Dramaturgy and choreographic assistance: Marco Payer
Production, artistic collaboration, voice: Dušana Baltić
Lighting design: Valentin Alfery
Costume design and production: Kreineckers (Anna & Magdalena Kreinecker)
Production assistance: Maira Darja Horvath, Laura Graciela Saiz, Max Rosenberger
Photography: Jelena Janković, Kilian Kovacs
Residency and research: Katharina Senk, Jacob Börlin, Jennie-Love Navoret, Anton Schalnich, Viviane Tanzmeister, Kilian Kovacs, Michael Sellner, Max Rosenberger, Alexander Ihara Muus, Victor Petro, Timo Bouter, Alexander Tesch, Elena Bartosch, Marco Payer
Thanks to: Matthias Mollner (Entwicklung Betonschuhe), Hannes Veitlbauer (Betonmischer)
Co-production: Kulturverein Hungry Sharks Wien, brut Wien and SZENE Salzburg
Supported by: City of Vienna MA7, BMKÖS, City of Salzburg, Region of Salzburg, Region of Carinthia.

Duration: 55 min
Entry: 8/10 EUR