AS I COLLAPSE
PERFORMANCE 2017

as I collapse is a speculative dance performance taking its point of origin in a collapse of our general perception of the world as divided into two: nature and culture.

In what seems to be an impenetrable darkness, the performance comes to life as millions of microscopic algae illuminate the stage in a glowing response to the dancers’ touch. A concrete, bright image of the human footprint on the planet and a poetic encounter with life of microscopic size.

as I collapse presents a speculative fictional universe that presents the bodies on very different scales, from a microscopic format to the human sized. In an attentive and energetic performance focus is turned to our culturally inherited understanding as being superior to other organisms. Here, boundaries are blurred between visible and invisible, between man and microbe, while the individual disappears into darkness and is replaced by a single luminous, united organism.

as I collapse is the first performance in a trilogy (Mass; 2018), (Extended Falls to Humanity; 2019), where recoil performance group take a post-human approach as they question our understanding of humans and of the humane – now and in a hypothetical future.

Press

– An incredibly beautiful and thought-provoking performance.
Sóley Freyja Eiríksdóttir, den4væg.dk

– When the light went back on after an hour or so, I felt as if I had been witnessing the birth of a new and wondrous world.
Karina Dahl, enturikulturland.dk

– Everything in this performance fits  so well together. The scenography, the action on stage, the light, the sound and the algae theme.
Rose Himmelstrup Hansen, Ungtteaterblod 23.03.2017

– It is a fascinating sight when Tina Tarpgaard, employing her keen sense for creating unique movements, lets the algae creatures slide together to form a united black or green glistening organism – an undulating collective corpus, from which naked feet protrude like tentacles.
Monna Dithmer, Politiken 23.03.2017

The five international dancers twist and wind impressively organically and persuasively in their glistening wet hooded suits (…) her luminescent algae dance is wondrous.
Anne Middelboe – Information 31.03.2017