CPPM MANIFESTAL. Seren Oroszvary: A BODY TO DWELL

The house is the body

You are invited this evening on an adventure. Your journey will lead you inside and outside. Welcome home!

“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
by Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)
The Essential Rumi

The house and the body are spaces that both inhabit and are inhabited. What parts or organs of your body would you associate with parts of the house? What if your house was a living body?

“Buildings are extremely weird. Every house tells a story. Part of what it is to be trained to survive in our society is to be trained to think that buildings don’t have secrets. But of course the moment you turn the lights out, everybody’s deep feeling that buildings are alive comes back.”
Architect Mark Wigley 2012

A Body To Dwell is a journey of rearranging oneself in the personal body, the architectural body, the community body and the environmental body. We spend our lives in a body and a house, putting things into and taking things out of these spaces. Right now it is even more important about what or who enters. Covid-19 has kept us in our homes and out of the theatre, challenging our physical and cultural experience and perception of both. Why not embrace the home as the theatre!

“The house was fighting gallantly. From the very beginning of the storm, snarling winds had been taking the roof to task, trying to pull it off, to break its back, tear it into shreds, suck it off. But it only hunched over further and clung to the old rafters. Everything swayed under the shock of this blow, but the flexible house stood up to the beast. No doubt it was holding firmly to the soil of the island… Though the shutters and doors were insulted, and there was loud bugling in the chimney, it was of no avail. The already human being in whom I had sought shelter for my body yielded nothing to the storm...’’
Henri Bosco
Malicroix 1946

It is important to find a home in our fluctuating bodies, they are our real houses. They stick with us on whatever adventure we take. How can we perceive and experience our house as our body and our body as our house? We all experience a body, we all seek a home. Where is yours?

“And what an image of concentrated being we are given with this house that "clings" to its inhabitant and becomes the cell of a body with its walls close together.”
Gaston Bachelard
The Poetics of Space 1994

Director SEREN OROSZVARY (AUS)
Composer PELLE SAND (DEN)
Video Artist DAG ASPELIN (SWE)
Illustrator MARIA ABRAHAMSSON (SWE)
Lighting & Sound Technician ALEKSANDR MIRSON (EST)
Scenographers LIISAMARI VIIK and MARTO MÄGI (EST)
Dramaturg SAMUEL SKOOG (UK)
Composer MIRJA MATTINEN (FIN)
Performers RAGNAR UUSTAL (EST), LEA SEKULIC (CRO), SEOHWON JI (KOR), LIISBETH KALA (EST), DONGBIN LEE (KOR), SAMUEL SKOOG (UK), MIRJA MATTINEN (FIN)

Thank you: Ana Sanchez-Colberg, Giacomo Veronesi, Jüri Nael, John Vomero and PESACO.NET

Seren Oroszvary (1994) is an actor, writer and theatre maker who grew up in Melbourne, Australia. After completing a BA in Creative Writing, Seren relocated to Europe to pursue her interest in european film and theatre practices and explore her Hungarian and Irish roots. Seren attended film and theatre school in Denmark and has lived in and collaborated on various projects in Melbourne, London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Malmö and Tallinn. Seren’s practice interweaves a number of mediums to create performance; she is particularly interested in the disciplines of film, architecture and writing. Her work seeks to offer intimate audience experiences in everyday, unconventional theatre spaces that rearrange the audience’s and the performers’ relationship to each other, to themselves and to the space. Seren’s artistic research lies in discovering ways that shift our physical and cultural perception of these often overlooked everyday (public and private) spaces, with the aim to embrace the current social, urban and ecological climate.

CPPM Manifestal is a celebratory international festival exploring dance, body, art, sound, multimedia and creativity.
2.05–17.06.2021
http://manifestal.ee