Himalaya

Himalaya unfolds as a cinematic landscape where sculpture, metaphysical fiction, and post-clubbing converge. The work invites the audience to reflect on our perception of time and on the many ways time can unfold. The first work by Elisa Zuppini following her graduation from the SNDO (School for New Dance Development), Himalaya premiered at ICK Fest and was extensively reworked in 2023 for the Feeling Curious? Festival at Theatre Rotterdam. In Himalaya, Elisa explores the material and libidinal dimensions of the body, and of reality as a complex web of interrelated systems. Her inquiry engages with seemingly irreconcilable forces and the allure of synthetic hybridisation, as this refracts through the body. By mapping the subtle movements of the real, she examines the slow temporality of geological erosion, the accelerating imagery of digital environments, and the repetition and persistence of machinic bodies. She stages the conflict between these systems, as if tectonic plates shifting within perception itself, colliding but never fully integrating. Here, planetary friction becomes a metaphor for the ways these systems operate in the mind: forceful yet unsettling, disjointed yet related. The work features an original score by Hesaitix (formerly M.E.S.H) / James Whipple, whose sonic worlds move between the organic and the synthetic. Through sound and movement, an irregular sense of time emerges, inviting the audience to encounter unexpected openings and shifts. concept and choreography Elisa Zuppini performer Federica Dalla Pozza original music Hesaitix fka M.E.S.H. (James Whipple) dramaturgy Bruno Listopad production assistant Michael Scerbo, Ludovica Daddi camera and editing Saskia Habermann produced and supported by Amsterdam Fonds for the Arts, ICK Amsterdam, Choreographic Center Heidelberg, Ricerca X, Armunia Teatri, RAM; Residenze Artistiche Marchigiane (promoted by MiC and Regione Marche)