Disconnected

Biography

Farm in the Cave

Company

Description

The composition Disconnected is a unique blend of installation, documentary and physical theatre, which arose from the observation of hikikomori. The piece combines action, video and text with live music, and is part of a project called Night in the City which aims to explore sensitive contemporary issues. Disconnected was inspired by meetings with young people from the Czech Republic, Tokyo and Scandinavia who live in large cities in extreme isolation, often refusing to leave their rooms. These people are hypersensitive individuals who are unable to return to society and ‘succeed’, even if they want to. This phenomenon, known as hikikomori, was first discovered in Japan, but has been found to exist in more and more countries around the world. The term hikikomori refers to both acute social withdrawal and people who suffer from this syndrome. Hikikomori is sometimes called the illness of the modern age.

Farm in the Cave
Director, choreography ― Viliam Dočolomanský
Performers ― Monika Částková, Anna Gromanová, Minh-Hieu Nguyen, Hana Varadzinová, Eliška Vavříková
Musician ― Petr Uvira
Research ― Viliam Dočolomanský, Eva Hamouzová, Jun-Wan Kim, Jun Muramatsu, Minh Hieu Nguyen, Šimon Peták
Concept ― Viliam Dočolomanský, Lucia Škandíková
Assistant director ― Šimon Peták
Choreographer assistants ― Monika Částková, Agnija Šeiko
Music ― Jan Burian, Viliam Dočolomanský, Petr Uvira
Set design and costumes ― Lucia Škandíková
Video ― Erik Bartoš
Lighting ― Pavel Kotlík
Dramaturgy and dramaturgical collaboration ― Sodja Lotker, Karel František Tománek
Production ― Dana Račková, Jan Valter
Technical production ― Zdena Rudolfová
Production assistants ― Veronika Dúbravová, Šimon Peták, Zdena Rudolfová, Karolina Zajdel
Coproduction ― European City of Culture Pilsen 2015, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art
Premiere ― 23 January 2016

The unique expressive dancing and vocal style of the Farm in the Cave has acquired a new content here… The style of the Farm in the Cave involves an almost unbearable kind of perfectionism of form: it has been employed to portray martyrology in today’s world, a world with which the hikikomori are unable to keep up.

Nina Vangeli | Divadelní Noviny
The issue that even the experts are reluctant to address cannot be solved at the first attempt. Disconnected has no intention of analysis of its emergence or finding a solution but it offers something equally valuable – an insight into its essence and mediation of the experience as much as physically possible.

Lucia Kocourková | Opera Plus
Viliam Dočolomanský has shown us, that the absence of the outside enemy doesn’t necessarily mean that we are safe. […] The gradual suicide that we willingly undergo is a genuine disaster.

Tatiana Brederová | A2