We talk about time constantly. “Do you have time to talk to me or I don’t have enough time to finish the job” and so on.

What we actually mean is duration, the time it takes between sunrise and sunset for example. Time is therefore a real thing and we can experience the passing of time in a concrete way almost as though it were a tangible object. But when the time-spans become longer, it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend. The life-time between our birth and death is actually hard to really grasp. We wake up every morning and go to bed every night but do we really experience how our time is slowly running out? Longer periods of time remain a mystery. The millions of years in the earth’s history are totally impossible to understand emotionally and the concept “Eternity” leaves us totally helpless.

In the beginning of mankind time must have been experienced quite differently. One orientated oneself according to the movement of the sun and other natural phenomena. In order to give time a comprehensible structure and form mankind invented the clock and divided time into definable units. From then on it was possible to measure the passing of time exactly. The clock had made time concrete; into hours, minutes and seconds.

But does this system really explain time adequately? Is there such a thing as an objective time, valid and applicable for all people and situations? As we have surely all experienced the way and speed in which time passes is often quite different. When one is waiting impatiently for something to happen it appears to slow down. A few minutes can drag themselves out into what seems like an eternity. Conversely when one is enjoying something fully with body, mind and soul time seems to fly. Time is therefore relative and personal. One could say that it is in our heads and that each of us has a different sense of it’s passing.

These thoughts led to the creation of our piece in which we try to illustrate time in terms of movement. We want to try to experiment in a playful way with the notion of time, stopping it, delaying its progress, experiencing it backwards or disconnected. Since time is relative our movements may therefore not always be simultaneous or in the same time-system.

Clément Bugnon (choreographer)

Matthias Kass (choreographer)

Nello Spazio Rosato (video & photography)

This work has been created for the dancers of the Italian dance-group Equilibrio Dinamico.

Co-production: Equilibrio Dinamico