Obsession with speed

Our society is obsessed with speed. In a society which imposes consumption and performance models saying “faster, bigger, further: that’s the way to do it”,we all get infected, we all become sick of hyper speed. We live in “a time that is unique, maniac, hysteric, which tends to no other future than the very next instant”, as the sociologist Thomas Hyland Eriksen wrote in one of his works. Everything goes faster but we end up having less and less time.

Why do w ego sof ast? Are we looking for strong sensations? Do they help us to feel alive or rather to forget?

It seems that when we want to remember, we slow down, we take our time. When w edecide to meet someone else, time does not matter anymore. Maybe our era is obsessed with speed because we wants to forget how worn-out, how disgusted and fed up we are with our times. Maybe it is because we want to forget how fragile we are and that speed is just an illusion.

And what is it, finally, that passes, time or us?

Speed can be exhilarating, something really great. We run and feel alive. But once we recover our breath, we understand that we fool ourselves, sometimes in a delicious way, that all this is nothing more than an illusion. Because in our craze for speed and acceleration, time is only considered as a succession of instants.

We run. But after having run, have we advanced? Won’t we loose the trance of a gesture gathered while we slow down or take a rest, just a sort of fringe gesture, but that goes deep? …. Does not take sides for slowness against speed. No binary decisions, no final resolutions but just questioning.

Katarzyna Gdaniec & Marco Cantalupo
Compagnie linga

 

Modern Dance Turkey

Modern Dance Turkey was founded as a repertoire company under the Directorate General of State Opera and Ballet in 1992 and 16 dancers realised their first performance on February 1993.

The first three years after foundation, the members of the company have concentrated on their own training, besides organising many activities and workshops at the universities aiming at reaching the young generation through modern dance. By that way, they have led the building of Modern Dance Departments in some universities.

Since its establishment, within this 15 years, the company has produced and performed more than 65 works created by both Turkish and foreign choreographers. MDT continues the performances of modern dance at the stage of Ankara Opera House and also attends national and international tours by their repertoire developing and enlarging with new works every season. The company has invited many modern dance masters and choreographers from abroad due to cultural cooperation with the diplomatic mission of the related countries in Turkey and provided a very positive contribution to the reputation of the State Opera and Ballet.

Upon the main principle of providing their creative and executive staff from among the artists of State Opera and Ballet; Modern Dance Turkey presents opprtunities for them and encourages their projects as the masters, trainers and choreographers of the modern dance works produced and performed by the Company.