In Common

When people come together

In Ivana Müller’s work the title always contains the concept of the performance: How Heavy Are My Thoughts, Playing Ensemble Again And Again, 60 Minutes of Opportunism and While We Were Holding It Together. Müller always manages to give shape to the power of language to influence our reality, in a way that is both playful and philosophical.

As part of our programme on ‘the collective’, we present two productions by Müller – and both on the same evening. The fundamental question they ask is what happens when people come together, how do we relate to and in a group? In the production In common the audience is the observer.

Ten performers present countless variations on what a ‘common body’ can mean. While the players seek a movement unison, a consensus between all these different bodies, they get caught up in positions and problems that are found in any democratic system. Can a group of people represent one idea? What we represent and how we are represented are the central questions in this piece, in which a series of choreographic rules make up an ingenious game that revolves around our society.

• Ivana Müller studied literature in Zagreb, dance and choreography in Amsterdam and art in Berlin. She lives and works in Amsterdam and Paris. The internationally acclaimed While we were holding it together – staged in September 2007 in the Kaaitheater 30 Shuffle – was a tableau vivant that told many stories in a way that was moving, disturbing and funny all at the same time.