ABRAKADABRA is a portal, a threshold and a performance – a bodily work that insists on the attempt, on creating itself, again and again, like a pulsating, indeterminate echo.
Abracadabra is a well-known spell from late antiquity. Some believe the word stems from the Hebrew habberakha, meaning ‘the blessing’, while others trace it to the Aramaic abruq ad babra, which translates directly to ‘I will create as I speak’.
In the performance ABRAKADABRA, it is the space itself that speaks, the space becomes the voice. The incantation or spell carries a promise of mystique and magic but reveals itself as something tangible through its translation. I will create as I speak grounds the project in practical work, movement, growth, development and action.
In a time when the outlook for the future seems dystopian, could the act of creation, the act of giving life, perhaps give us hope for a new future? Or is this insistence on constant production our Achilles‘ heel? Are we digging our own grave, dancing ourselves exhausted into darkness – or is it precisely within the attempt, in an abracadabra!, that we might glimpse another possible world?
Signe Becker is a scenographer and visual artist and operates in a cross-artistic landscape. Her artistic projects include collaborations within dance and theater in the performing arts field, as well as her own works. Charlott Utzig and Julie Moviken have collaborated for a long time in the performing art group De Naive and are both working with dance and choreography. ABRAKADABRA is Becker/Moviken/Utzig's first collaboration. Driven by a common interest in “doing” as an entrance to art production, they investigate the potential of a physical and hybrid space where bodies, objects, sounds and light unite.
