Collective Loss of Memory

Tom the Jew, highly adaptable Nathan, Dano – the helper, pure and original Knut and the boss Joona – fifty per cent better than any other. With this group of five funny guys we will dive into the powerful social phenomenon of the great pleasure human beings: take in killing and participating in violence.

The pleasure of killing gives the perpetrator a strange experience of absolute power and freedom… But for the victims it is hell itself.

What do random observers of violent scenes? They do nothing. Suffering from collective loss of memory they just observe.

About the author
The successful co-operation of DOT504 and RootLessRoot tandem Jozef & Linda is based on their former internationally successful projects. Holdin’ Fast received the Total Theatre Award nomination for the Best Young Company at the Fringe Festival Edinburgh in 2008 and launched a series of international success and recognition for authors and for DOT504 Dance Company as well. Following project 100 Wounded Tears was awarded at the Fringe Festival Edinburgh with The Herald Angels Award 2009.

What the critics say
“Apart from dance sequences that here and there change into acrobatics and mix elements of new circus the international group of performers create an honest performance that is despite of its seeming superficiality very strong and rich in thought. Last but not least… it is also funny which comes in quite handy, even though it doesn’t save you from unpleasant feelings.

Collective Loss of Memory is one of the performances that don’t cause a false pleasure and hypocritical laugh, but partially stays inside you and transforms into a very important lesson that being a human is not a gift but also a curse. Often nobody knows what can be hiding inside him – and that’s what this performance deals with too.”

Jakub Novák, Aktualne.cz, OCT 22, 2014

The international jury appreciated the fact that the work, which focuses on social and political events happening around us, in a very subtle ways succeeds in manipulating the audience, who only learn in the very last scene where everything comes from. The powerful male figures on the stage provoke each other verbally and physically, perform extreme acrobatic moves and try to outdo each other, which can easily turn into senseless, even extreme violence. The work is a powerful reflection of a society that is very individualistic, egocentric, homophobic and discriminatory.

International jury of Czech Dance Platform Festival, APR 12, 2015

“Fluent cheetah movements performed in a perfect collective harmony offer the spectator a tasteful experience par excellence and every small detail becomes apparent thanks to the dark and bare background. (Super)male aggressive energy is developed through dance movements that are taken from Asian martial arts and Greek-Roman battles. Signs of punches, grasps, rolls, foul tricks and kicks constitute necessary explosive charge, speed and also the above mentioned elegance and always stop just in front of the enemies’ body. The chosen tempo is breathtaking.

Fight for territory or status in the pack is a fascinating spectacle. Well-build bodies, play of muscles, genetically encoded rituals, comparison of physical capacity, intransigence in the eyes and also cowardice, obligingness, falsity, smell of fear. You observe and cannot tear your eyes away from it – nor despite the fact that according to merciless law of nature life is in question here. Who will be the Alpha and who the Omega male? We are caught up in an incomprehensible trance and most likely you will not turn your eyes away even after the body of the defeated man starts to be swayed by terminal cramp. The beauty of cruelty and the cruelty of beauty. DOT504 established in Ponec Theatre a special piece of art, disturbing and provocative masterpiece.”

Veronika Boušová, Divadelní noviny (Theatre Newspaper), OCT 20, 2014