Gravitas

The library of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute is one of the largest libraries in the world and the largest technical university library in Ukraine, located in the centre of the campus. The new building was inaugurated in 1998. Dating from the Soviet era, the exterior is a sober combination of different shapes and proportions, dominated by rectangular elements. The facades are clad in white Inkerman stone, and the staircase and basement are in granite.

The dancers who move through these spaces play a fascinating game: they imagine themselves on an alien planet, in an environment that is totally unknown to them. How does it feel to come into contact with surfaces with completely new and different qualities? Where will you find softness and malleability, or hardness and resistance? What is sturdy? what could break?

The idea that familiar objects such as staircases or tables suddenly find themselves invested with a completely different, as yet unknown, function serves as the starting point for these improvisations. The protagonists of this choreographic experiment explore not only the limits of their imagination, but also the limits of gravity.

Filmed in May 2024 in the library of the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev, Ukraine.