Touch!

<< I reach out to touch you in order to invent
a relation that will, in turn, invent me.  >>

Touch! is an investigation about a caring physical contact and its sensitive experience which is generated by the huge organ- our skin. The two performers explore the concept of touch, gentleness and care in our society. The performance sheds light on the possibilities and the richness of touch in our everyday life of which we are not always aware.

The phenomenon of touch indicates an interdependency of two components: There is no touch without being touched in return. How can touch be transformed as a symbol for the dialogue with the surrounding world? During the process of creation different questions rose up and were translated into movement scores: What is the starting point for a caring action for someone or something and how does it manifest to the other? What qualities, actions and situations are associated with care? Can we extend an individual caring situation into something universally accepted? What are the limits and how to become aware of them between being passive, being caring and being overacting?
The chosen movement score is accompanied by an audio track which consists a personal conversation of the artists during their process reflecting on different aspects of the thematic. Cultural, bodily, and interactive notions of care and gentleness in relation to the basic action of touch are discussed, interpreted and outlined during this performance. At any moment there is the possibility for the public to enter or exit interaction with the performers, to get active part of this intimate room or to take the position of a more distant observer. 

This piece is created during the new Mirco-Format _DUET* of the Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival which took place in the end of October 2018 in Nicosia and is selected as the winning award of the program. Different artists have been invited and paired-up for a week-long residency to explore a cross-cultural experience in their interdisciplinary work. Touch! is a melting point between contemporary dance and live art, between two artists who didn’t know each other before and started to explore this intimate topic.

Comment by artistic director Achim Wieland
Buffer-Fringe Festival of the Performing Arts Cyprus

<<Laura Saumweber & Petros Konnaris’ performance shakes our assumption of what the human touch can be. The selected winner of the Buffer-Fringe Festivals’ Artistic Development programme DUET, has impressed on the main stage of the festival not only by its strong concept and unique interactive approach, but by exposing their fragility as performers, the creators managed to render the spectators into a powerful mass of pure human potential. >>