dance performance
non-verbal
trigger warnings: nudity, +14
80' perormance + 30' aftertalk

Charlie is a solo created by choreographer Adrienn Hód together with dancer and artistic collaborator Károly Tóth, continuing HODWORKS’ exploration of non-normative bodies while extending our notions of dance and choreography. The work begins with everyday, functional actions: Tóth reaches for objects, drinks from a bottle, plugs in a cable and moves through the space in his electric wheelchair. Through duration, effort, repetition and unpredictability, the same gestures are perceived at different moments as functional action, expression or choreography.
Alone onstage, Tóth becomes the constant center of attention, holding and shaping the space through his own rhythms and movement. His solo presence makes visible some of the able-bodied assumptions embedded in theatre and spectatorship: who is expected to occupy the stage, how bodies are expected to move through it, and which movements are recognised as expressive or virtuosic. Charlie resists familiar narratives of limitation or overcoming, focusing instead on Tóth’s movement, imagination and presence, while playfully questioning the relations between body, movement, space, time and the audience. (Gábor Thury, curator)

Charlie is a solo performance born from collective experimentation and an extensive, in-depth research process. Following the path set by Idol and Harmonia, Adrienn Hód’s new piece places wheelchair-using dancer Károly Tóth at its center.
Hód’s simple yet profound goal is to highlight Károly Tóth’s personality on stage. As a performer with a non-normative body, he offers a groundbreaking and inspiring perspective on patience and openness by sharing the experiences of his everyday life. Free of taboos, the performance provides an intimate glimpse into his world.

Charlie rethinks the conventions of contemporary dance, emphasizing the importance of inclusion while questioning normative expectations, social conventions, and the role of art itself. It seeks to raise awareness of inclusive performing arts and contribute to the development of a more open and diverse cultural environment.

Physically, Charlie balances between function and expression, exploring and redefining the ways in which these can be crossed. It plays with reality and artificiality, pushing the boundaries of capability. At times, it embraces limitations and transforms them into dance. The piece is an exploration of presence on stage, the interplay of attention, perception, and imagination directed toward the body. It navigates between action and sensation. Movement is driven by a clear purpose – a sustained presence and focus toward an imagined direction – allowing for an unpredictable yet rich and diverse physicality to emerge.

CREDITS

Performer: Károly TÓTH
Choreographer: Adrienn HÓD
Sociologist, consultant: Judit SURÁNYI
Music: Rozália MÁKÓ
Light: Katalin DÉZSI

Co-producer: DansiT Choreographic Center
Special thanks to: Ádám CZIRÁK, Ágnes GYULAVÁRI, Ármin SZABÓ-SZÉKELY, Csaba MOLNÁR, Eszter GÁL, Imola KACSÓ, Imre VASS, Katalin ERDŐDI, Marcio KERBER CANABARRO, Márton GLÁSER, Natália NAGY, Szilvia ARTNER, Veronika SZABÓ, Viktor SZERI

Supported by: OFF Foundation, Eötvös10, National Cultural Fund

REVIEWS

“I find it a captivating, courageous, and deeply liberating choice that Károly Tóth has devoted himself specifically to contemporary dance – and that he has embraced this commitment so fully. He holds a degree in theatre studies and could have channelled his passion for the performing arts into numerous other fields, thereby avoiding having his physical disability placed at the centre of his work. But there is a reason he chose dance. And with this far-reaching decision – to have the courage to dedicate himself to an art form that speaks precisely through the body – his encounter with another exceptional artist, Adrienn Hód, seems almost inevitable. It is hardly surprising that, alongside Charlie, they have created two other works together.
For beyond dance, there is something else that connects these two people. Neither of them is interested in fixed ideals or artistic conventions – they are interested in the human being. For them, the performing arts are something profoundly personal, because their essence does not lie in the reproduction of movement. They begin where everyone else would seem to be at a disadvantage compared to them, and they do so with extraordinary sensitivity, courage, and humility. ‘You can become anyone!’ theatre and capitalism both proclaim. But even in the theatre, one cannot always compete with someone who carries their own fate within their body.
Charlie is not about how, as a wheelchair user, nothing could be easier than dancing ballet. Charlie is not a Dove commercial. It is a deeply moving, unsettling performance that reveals that if we pay sufficient attention to one another – as Adrienn Hód and Károly Tóth are able to do – then what appears to be a flaw can become a distinctive quality, and behind the all-consuming label of ‘disabled’ there can be infinite expansiveness. It shows that the limits of neither self-expression nor contemporary performance seem to lie where we once believed they did. It offers the profoundly visceral and deeply embodied experience of a simple but powerful truth: someone here does not become ‘just anyone’ – or even ‘anybody at all’ – but instead succeeds in revealing themselves in a way that most of us fail to do in everyday life.”
– Halász Péter Award – Noémi Herczog’s laudation, 2026.
 

“I often say that if someone has never met a person with a physical disability before, we shouldn't expect them to be sensitive towards us. We have to make ourselves visible. Once that happens, those awkward reactions won't occur anymore.”
– Interview with Károly Tóth

TOURS, FESTIVALS

TANEČNO, Namesztó (SK), 2025.
Španski Borci, Ljubljana (SI), 2026.
Multiplié Festival, Trondheim (NO), 2026.
Theatre World Festival, Brno (CZ), 2026.
Akropoditi DanceFest, Syros (GR), 2026.

BIO

The HODWORKS company was founded in 2007 by Adrienn HÓD. The ensemble works with freelance artists and is active both in the Hungarian and international contemporary dance scene. The core dancers of the troupe have been working together for years in varying constellations. The performances mark unknown, boundary-pushing directions, often dealing with the physicality of the completely stripped human body. The content of their works is characterized by a subtle movement between an abstract appearance and a concrete, often verbalized meaning. Their topics range from universal human experiences to the specific critique of the world of contemporary dance. The performances of HODWORKS have been selected three times by Aerowaves, and the company is a multiple winner of the Rudolf Lábán and Imre Zoltán awards in Hungary.

The performances of HODWORKS strongly expose the performer’s situation and demonstrate it with extreme human conditions, both through physical and verbal means. The aim of the pieces is not to investigate specific taboos, but to create and present a liberated creative space where signs can be freed from their predetermined interpretation. The troupe investigates the cultural topos related to the human body and contemporary dance with constant curiosity, always questioning the boundaries of the stage space. The dancers appear as sovereign characters in the pieces, the creational processes are always enriched with their personal points of view. Their performance tools are not only limited to physicality: verbality and humor are also given significant space. In their constant resarching and performing work, they examine their own identity and existential questions, often in the form of direct or abstract questions addressed directly to the audience.
Adrienn Hód imagines the theater as a safe space where the topics raised and the dialogue about them can be explored in their full depth and made artistically visible. The creational processes led by her are not driven by a single unquestionable choreographic vision. With her company, she examines the various talents that are present, giving space to their knowledge, experiences and emotions that came into the space of the rehearsal room along a specific theme. Her creative process is always based on improvisation, and she often uses knowledge provided by external, invited contributors. Finally, the pieces created during the fine-tuning and precisely constructed structuring can have a broad perspective, with a rich and diverse end result. On stage, the focus is always on the performers’ bodies, her/his physical and performative conditions. Great emphasis is placed on sound design and lighting, which help powerfully to create the right situation that encourages deep immersion.

For HODWORKS, art is an alibi for freedom. Above all, the troupe emphasises the complexity and radicalism of personal expression, laying bare the multilayered constructs of identity. Their works may also be read, in the context of endangered artistic and personal autonomy, as marking a movement of defence and of re-obtaining said autonomy.

CONTACT

Astrid Rostaing
international distribution
distribution.hodworks@gmail.com
hodworks.hu