The Phantom Layer

Dance and literary fiction

Whatever we do, wherever we go we leave traces. However, other people have also left traces before us, and now we follow their traces. We leave our traces in buildings, roads, furniture and ships. Because our technological compulsion drives us into inconceivable territory, we are even able to intervene in nature. The Phantom Layer is a performance about limited options and unlimited outcomes. It is about endless repetition and freedom. It is about the dance we all dance, and which makes us all unique.

• Two and a half years after the group performance now h e r e, Salva Sanchis created The Phantom Layer. In now h e r e Sanchis looked for a simple translation of complex movement material. In The Phantom Layer he opts for a layered, multi-faceted structure on stage. Whereas now h e r e focused on form, The Phantom Layer focuses on fiction in dance. The dance vocabulary, developed by the dancers, is combined with fiction from literature. The performance consequently builds bridges between the abstract and the concrete. Sanchis uses the text not only as a means to introduce fiction into his work, but also to generate musicality through language. Apart from this there is also the important role played by the video artist Pablo Castilla, who was present from the first day of rehearsals to start filming, thereby already introducing a fictional context into the creative process.