Florentina Holzinger

The Austrian Florentina Holzinger is one of today’s most talked-about choreographers. Her work teeters on a knife edge: prizes and controversy follow her wherever she goes. In her fifth visit to DE SINGEL, she once again pushes the boundaries - of ballet, pop culture and high art, those of the body and the audience. Her transgressive style must hurt a little, she asserts. And blood, nudity and physical exhaustion are a core part of that.

In 1816, the original "year without summer“, Mount Tambora erupts in Indonesia, ashes fill the sky, the sun disappears, crops fail, and the world hungers. That same year, 18-year-old Mary stays by Lake Geneva with other poets, where storm and darkness inspire them to tell ghost stories. Mary imagines Frankenstein, a genius of science, who forces nature to bend to his will and ends up in destruction with his monster assembled from corpses‘ parts. 

Florentina Holzinger and cast explore the stories we tell about our environment, bodies, health, decay and identities: The 21st century pursuit of longevity, medical promises to the perils of unchecked technological growth in a world shaped by AI, robotics, and bioengineering. A Year without Summer appropriates this attempt to improve nature to the point of perversion and plays off the promise of eternal life against the certainty of death. But what happens when the creation becomes the monster? When creation becomes (like) us?

Thematic trigger: This performance contains scenes of self-harm, blood and other body fluids, and explicit depictions of sexual acts.
Technical trigger: This performance contains scenes with strobe lights and loud music.