if time is infinite, then we are in no point in time

if space is infinite then we are at no point in space

 

– jorge luís borges, the book of sand

"Study the page well. You will never see it again."

In Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, The Book of Sand (1975), we find a mysterious book, that, like the sand, neither has a beginning, nor an end. Pages literally multiply between the pages, and once you open the book you never encounter the same content in it. “The number of pages in this book is exactly infinite. No page is the first; none the last. I don’t know why they’re numbered in this arbitrary way. Perhaps it’s to demonstrate that an infinite series includes any number.”

The book of sand has been conceived as a series of multidisciplinary performative pieces, that set body/movement as a central medium in a spontaneous composition dialogue with visual art, painting, performance and music. 

Offering a choreographic reading of the Borgesian concept of the infinite knowledge, the performing body is exposed to the politics of memory – oblivion & expansion – erasure binary patterns. 


Led by alina sokulska, the episodes (pages) of the book of sand embrace short and long duration solo, duo and group pieces formats in a cooperation with artists who work with spontaneous composition within their media (painting, drawing, music, performance). 

EPISODES / PAGES

page 1:

The first work of the project, written for a solo dancer and a group of live painting and drawing artists, THE BEAUTIFUL FORMULA COLLECTIVE. 8 minutes starting material for a choreographic, music and visual art spontaneous composition is repeating in a loop, until it finds its logical end. The research is placed on how the movement and time changes in the repetition of interpreting the same score differently with each take. 

Average duration: 60 minutes

Composition, interpretation, choreography: Alina Sokulska

Music: Steve Coleman’s Natal Eclipse – Dancing & Jabbing

Co-composition, live painting & drawing: THE BEAUTIFUL FORMULA COLLECTIVE – Oleksiy Koval, Veronika Wenger, Daniel Geiger

With the support of: Artist at Residence Munich, the Department of Culture of the City of Munich, Institut del Teatre Diputació Barcelona

[ work in progress ]

Year of conception: 2023

erasure

A spontaneous composition written for the movement in choreovisual relations with live painting and sound. the concept of the work is to experience how the time negates the space and the body, when a matter (body) is erasing its shape under the amount of time that is needed, the gravity and its own weight.

Average duration: 20 minutes

Composition, interpretation, choreography: Alina Sokulska

Spoken word: Hanna Osadko

Co-composition, live painting: Oleksiy Koval

With the support of: Artist at Residence Munich, the Department of Culture of the City of Munich, Institut del Teatre Diputació Barcelona

[ work in progress ]

Year of conception: 2023