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.”

conceptualized & directed by alina sokulska, the book of sand has been conceived as a multidisciplinary macromodular performance project, that sets body/movement as its central medium in a spontaneous composition dialogue between choreography, visual art, and music. proposing a reading of the Borgesian concept of the infinite knowledge, the project reflects upon what, how, when, and until where is it, “to understand”? trying to figure out a formula to approach the liminal / erased identity, the piece conjures up a corporeality that is set as a divination capsule thought at the same time as a place, a space, and an articulator of all possible narratives unfolding out of it.

relying on the compositional tension between destination and accident, the oracles (interpreters) of the book of sand navigate between the binarities of memory – oblivion, expansion – erasure, accumulation – fragmentation, and abstraction – narration, proposing  semantic synchronicities between the divination units in every new take of the performance. the audience’s gaze plays a definitive role in the divination process, as a spectator is invited to interpret the proposed coincidences happening on stage.

the book of sand has an elastic structure, embracing the varied dramaturgies of its modules (pages) of solo, duo, group pieces, as well as live music, installation, with its elastic format permitting constant restructuring and playing with an idea of the format and duration.