The Weight of Water

The world is shaking. While politicians argue endlessly and indulge in a power game that has  mostly losers, we are balancing on the threshold of the future – vulnerable and longing for something to hold on to.  

With the audience on the quay, an imposing, sleek-white floating staircase looms in the distance. On it six performers engage in an exciting dance with the tilting object, while musicians on a floating platform accompany the shimmering dynamics with a combination of vocals, trumpet, guitar, analogue synthesiser and text samples from politicians’ speeches.

It soon becomes clear how shaky the stairs are: if one of the ‘sailors’ moves to the other side, the whole thing tilts and the rest must react immediately to avoid slipping and falling into the water. Therefore, the stakes are high; the risk is constantly felt by the audience. 

With it, The Weight of Water is an exciting, poetic dance/circus performance on water. One that shows a striving for power, but also reveals dependence – on each other, and on larger uncontrollable elements.

Pia Meuthen followed her dance education at the Amsterdam School of the Arts and the Fontys Dance Academy in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Since graduating she has created performances for various Dutch production houses and companies. In 2002 she founded Panama Pictures where she is artistic director and choreographer. 

With her company Panama Pictures, choreographer Pia Meuthen has developed an authentic signature: unpolished and raw, characterized by the ease in which dance and circus are woven into a new physical language that embraces acrobatics but does not emphasize its technical prowess. It is a powerful language that triggers a physical reaction. As a spectator you feel the impact of the movement, clearly something is at stake. With themes at the crossroads of the personal and the universal, Pia invites her audience to identify with the performers and appeals to a sense of empathy with them.

‘Even though we long for clarity and control over our existence, we have to relate to a world that is complex and unpredictable. In my work I want to make the multi-layered tangible and to portray people who hold their ground in complex situations. Our performances are an invitation to the audience not to unravel a story, but to be open to a multitude of meanings by creating space for their own associations, memories and questions.’ (Pia Meuthen)

The presentation of the performance at ConTempo Festival is supported by Performing Arts Fund NL.