Alihop

Alihop does not stem from a predetermined topic,

but arose from the search for dance-related movements.

Body language led to ideas for certain choreography moves.

It might be surprising, then, that a piece that started with
improvisation

has ended up with horse riding as its main subject.

Because dance is always about taming:

dancers domesticate their bodies;

choreographers tame dancers.

And that is what we see in the most popular interpretations of dance,

from the dance classes in the classic TV series Fame

to the torturous choreography work in the recent Hollywood movie Black
Swan.

For centuries the techniques of domestication have been inscribed into
our bodies.

The animal - the horse - is the Other, the known Other, the tamed Other.

Bigger and stronger than man, it lets itself be brought down and tamed.

The noblest fighter is the knight - caballero in Spanish, Ritter in
German

- a word that is used also for a man with good manners. The tamed tamer.

A figure we have known well throughout history,

from Genghis Khan to General Franco - a man who tried to make himself
immortal

by setting up thousands of statues of him riding a horse.

The horse as a metaphor has become part of our subconscious:

one of the classic examples in psychoanalysis is the case of little
Hans, the boy who fears horses.

Freud interpreted this as the son's fear of his father in the struggle
for the love of the mother.

We don't have space to go into other details here, for example the
meaning of the whip,

or the dominatrix in S&M practice, or the fact that George W Bush has
never been seen on a horse.

We should simply take our seat in the theatre and observe the human body
taking possession of space

and each of us will find our own images or thoughts.

Alihop offers an original exploration of our centuries-old passage

through movement - walking, riding, driving or flying.

premiere 2011 at the antic teatre barcelona

lights: Ignasi llorens

Music: Paul Rose, Schubert

Choreography and Performance: A.Lamprianidou

duration: 30min

Video: https://vimeo.com/156945479