Film: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – The Film

A dance film choreographed by Sergiu Matis . Another midsummer is approaching and the heatwave ignites random bonfires. The wind scatters the ashes on the remaining tree stumps, and in the glaring flames the charred forests magically sparkle, as if enchanted. During the night, the heat is bearable. But no one sleeps, they venture out of their bunkers to admire the spectacle of flames. Walking on fire is an old ritual for cleansing – now it’s the new normal.

What does Shakespeare’s romantic comedy from 1595 have in common with the themes of climate change, feminism, and the colonialist, capitalist west? This rendition of Shakespeare’s play adapts its principal themes of obsessive love, nature, and the mystical, to our times. In this Midsummer Night’s Dream no one laughs at trivial erotic turbulences anymore. What do we laugh at in the post-apocalypse?

Sergiu Matis is a Romanian choreographer living and working in Berlin. He often uses science-fiction or dystopian scenarios as points of departure for his movement scores. They enable reimagining and reorganising the body towards new intensities and extremes, making visible an exaggerated version of the bodies of the present.

A live performance of this work is possible, subject to discussion with the Artistic Director.