Deufert/Plischke

Thomas Plischke and Kattrin Deufert are, at least from a political point of view, the most important dance-artists is Europe at this moment. Not because their work is always a big artistic success, nor because it is easily enjoyable, but because they consistently choose to go against the current taste for a kind of dance that is “politically correct,“ i.e. a dance form that prefers not to put questions but rather gives all too easy answers. Deufert & Plischke on the other hand show how exacting and difficult it is to make a full portrait of reality in all its confusing diversity.

Their recent work “Directory 3: Tattoo“ is a brilliant effort to explore the connection between writing and moving. This has led to a performance in which the dancers share a common dance-lan­guage which they generated through a repetitive process of moving and writing down movement. They use this language only to show how different the use of this one and same language can be. Amongst them, these five dancers as such provide a compelling miniature-portrait of the diversity of the world. The political relevance of this portrait is hard to miss, but at the same time it is an outstanding performance. There ...