Concert-performance
Non-verbal
Trigger warning: nudity, heavy smoke, intense lighting and sound effects, 18+

In Márk Bartha and Emese Cuhorka’s immersive concert-performance Entering the Limbo, the audience sits among ten musicians and ten dancers. The space is shaped by acoustic instruments, live electronics and movement; the performers improvise within defined structures, while music and choreography develop with equal energy, responding to one another. The performance is a new stage in Bartha’s electroacoustic project Ensemble in Limbo, extending musical experimentation into the realm of movement.
Limbo is a state of both waiting and transition: something has already passed, and what follows has not yet taken shape. Slow shifts, drawn-out sounds and gradually evolving common rhythms define the tempo of this liminal state. Grief and remembrance create community through being together: Entering the Limbo transforms personal loss into a shared experience, a kind of contemporary ritual. (Léna Szirmay-Kalos, curator)

Entering the Limbo is a new large-scale concert-performance within Márk Bartha’s Ensemble in Limbo project, transforming the distinctive industrial space of Arzenál club into a shared field of perception. The production brings together 20 performers – 10 musicians and 10 dancers – and was created in collaboration with choreographer Emese Cuhorka, with whom Bartha explores the relationship between sound, movement, the body and architectural space.
Ensemble in Limbo functions as an open, site-specific artistic platform: each performance grows out of the acoustics, atmosphere and history of the given location. Entering the Limbo unfolds through slow-building musical processes, repetition, silence, moving sound sources and inner impulses taking shape through the dancers’ bodies. Rather than entering a conventional concert or theatre situation, the audience is invited into an intermediate, suspended state, where sound, light, movement and presence gradually merge.
Through the performers’ continuous presence, mutual attunement and spatial movement, the performance becomes a ritual-like process of collective listening, in which performers and audience members become participants in the same transforming space.

CREDITS

Performers: Kámea FARKAS, Ruben FARKAS, Márton GLÁSER, Attila HORVÁTH, Nóra HORVÁTH, Adél JORDÁN, Adél JUHÁSZ, Zsófia SZÁSZ, Gáspár TÉRI, Zita THURY
Musicians: Béla ÁGOSTON (saxophone, bagpipe, glissotar), Juli DEÁK (saxophone, flute), Boldizsár HUSZTI (trumpet), Tamás GERÖLY (drums, percussion), Árpád KISS (trumpet), Gábor PAP (trombone), Áron PORTELEKI (drums, percussion), István SZÖGI (trombone), Salamon TŰZKŐ (trumpet)
Concept, creator, music: Márk BARTHA 
Creator, choreography, costume: Emese CUHORKA
Lighting design: Júlia MOHÁCSI
Production assistant: Zsuzsanna LAJKÓ-BALOGH
Production manager: Dániel MAYER
Production partner: STEREO AKT
Supported by: Municipality of Budapest, Pro Cultura Urbis Public Foundation, Tiszta Forrás Foundation, JazzaJ

Reviews

“Limbo is a transitional state, a passage between two worlds, a no-place where everything can exist: both what you want to leave behind and what you long for. In this sense, it leads towards trance. But it can also be seen as a waiting room, where you process your past in order to prepare your future. In this concert-performance, we are searching for something new in the relationship between music and movement. How can sound and physicality carry the same emotional force in a club space?”
– Orsolya Tóth-Gyóllai, Revizor, 2026.

BIO

Márk BARTHA is a composer, performer and interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of contemporary- and electronic music. His practice focuses on site-specific thinking, collaborative creation and a performative approach to sound. For more than ten years, he has composed music for theatre and dance productions in Hungary and internationally.

In recent years, his stage-based work has become increasingly central: as an artist and co-creator, he has contributed to productions such as Tisztasági festés, Az ügy, Peremvidék and Entering the Limbo. In these works, music is not an accompanying element, but a force that shapes space, dramaturgy and collective presence. His musical platform, Ensemble in Limbo, explores the relationship between sound, space and communal presence through site-specific formats.
Entering the Limbo is choreographed by Emese CUHORKA, a contemporary dancer, choreographer and teacher, and a key member of Hodworks. As a co-creator and performer, she has taken part in six Rudolf Lábán Award-winning productions, and five of her works have been selected by Aerowaves.

The production’s collaborating partner is STEREO AKT, a contemporary theatre collective creating participatory, site-specific and interdisciplinary performances since 2013. Their work focuses on active audience participation, collective experience and the dramaturgical use of space. Their productions have been presented in more than 40 cities across 13 countries.

CONTACT

BARTHA MÁRK
markbartha@gmail.com
barthamark.com

instagram.com/barthamarko/
stereoakt.hu/