How does movement change us? What does this question reveal when put in national contexts? In other words: Do hardships we encounter when living in a foreign country, change us and can real trust be born? This is the departure point of Augmented spaces. Over three interventions, the performance researches the structure of the space by creating it with the elements of the set. Not only building but destruction is also part of this process. The choreography abstracts the process in which our sense of oneness with, and alienation from, our environment alternates. Through a gradual separation from nature and a growing awareness, the psyche splits into an observer and an experiencer, as a result of which we marvel at ourselves and our original home as strangers. But abstraction is concreticized in a way: The piece draws from the artist’s life – it expresses her observations from 24 years of her life, it reflects on her experiences of encountering foreign cultures. Life as constant fluctuation, involution as evolution.

# change, hardship, foreign, space structure, destruction, oneness with environment, gradual separation, 24 years, life 

choreography, movements: Gyula Berger, Ayumi Toyabe / directed by: Gyula Berger / performance: Ayumi Toyabe, Anna Stefanovics / music: Bernard Parmegiani - De Natura Sonorum / lighting design: Géza Budai / visual/set/costume consultancy: György Árvai, Edit Szűcs / make-up design: Malvina Antal / funding: Summa Artium, National Cultural Fund of Hungary, L1 Association, Works-hop Foundation, Ultima Vez 

© Meeri-Ann Ostrov