“Dance first, think later, it’s the natural order.” An expression of an inner spirit and a human body's living soul; dance, is one of many forms of this expression. Dance is a platform - a stage - that glorifies an ambition.Violet by Damaged Goods will be performed at Nelum Pokuna Theatre on February 19, from 7 pm. For Invitations you can email colombo-intern2@goethe.de! So, what’s new with VIOLET?

1.  JUMPS AND SWIRLS THROUGH UNLIKELY PATTERNS

Just five dancers and one musician on stage! For a trip you might or might not like, but one you’re not likely to forget. Five dancers who reveal an energetic landscape, a charged terrain of options. Violet is a swirl of energetic patterns. To make it more exciting, the dancers will partner live on stage by musician Brendan Dougherty on electronics and percussion. Perhaps the most abstract piece so far in her long standing career, VIOLET bears Meg’s unique signature, an art that speaks of a fragile ‘condition humaine’ in its intense physical emergence.

2. UNPREDICTIBILITY IS KEY

Meg Stuart, born in New Orleans, is an American choreographer and dancer who lives and works in Berlin and Brussels. She made her first dance studies as a teenager focusing on simple movement actions. Meg decided to move to New York in 1983 and studied dance at New York University. She continued her training at Movement Research where she explored numerous release techniques and was actively involved in the downtown New York dance scene. Alongside her work as a choreographer, Stuart regularly teaches workshops and master classes at dance schools, festivals and institutions. Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods has an on-going collaboration with Kaaitheater in Brussels and HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin.

3. EVERYONE'S DAMAGED GOODS

Here is what we found. The company's name was taken from the first review Stuart received for Disfigure Study in The Village Voice. Burt Supree wrote: "But it's failure that absorbs Stuart, the body's stubborn, fumbling thickness, its sticky desires and cruel inefficacies. And everyone is shown as damaged goods." Meg Stuart found it a fitting name for her choreographic work that doesn't highlight virtuosity but searches to reveal the hidden world of her dancers as they question themselves on stage. Together they have worked on over thirty productions, ranging from solos such as XXX for Arlene and Colleagues (1995), Soft Wear (2000) and the evening-length solo Hunter (2014) to large-scale choreographies such as Visitors Only (2003), Built to Last (2012) and UNTIL OUR HEARTS STOP (2015). Other projects include publications (a.o. Are we here yet?), video works (a.o. the invited, Somewhere in between), installations (a.o. The Only Possible City) and site-specific projects, of which Projecting [Space[ (2017) is the most recent.

4. A WHIRL-WIND DANCE

VIOLET is a whirl-dance whose energetic currents stir the wavelengths of both dance and imagination. A flash of light and there they are. Electronic music creates this feeling of a world outside. This could be the world as we know it. Step by step those five dancers would be moving forward. You just feel that a lot of attention has been paid to all the different details. Don’t expect them to build a ‘classic’ group choreography either.  VIOLET is about showcasing the forces of nature, and how energetically physical matter takes one form after another.

5. WHY THE NAME VIOLET?

If you first thought of the colour ‘violet’, then you guessed right. The colour violet is a wonder, in itself. Shine a white light through a prism, you see violet at the end of the visible spectrum of light between the blue and the invisible ultraviolet, a true spectacle to witness. It is a zone where both visibility and invisibility co-exist, a space where an unforeseen force can be manifested. Sounds familiar? Maybe because VIOLET was conceptualized to show the audience what is happening around the world. Be it the political shifts, societal crisis or simply the human nature.

The good news is February 19^th is a Poya holiday so you can have an eventful evening with VIOLET!