Bert promenade (VALYO)
Sauna-performance
In English
Trigger warning: sauna, cold plunge, participatory, 16+
Cold Comfort is a radical and poetic somatic journey in which the encounter between skin and ice-cold water, hot air entering the nasal passages and confrontation with the elements turn our attention towards existence and our corporeality. In this immersive, participatory performance, guided by the creators, we leave our comfort zone behind in order to collectively experience what we might learn from encounters with extreme cold and heat.
Cold Comfort draws on the experiences and knowledge of people working in extreme temperatures or in the field of health research. The artists were interested in whether the liminal states experienced within the performance might bring us closer to “full presence”, to silencing the ego, and to rethinking our relationship with the unfathomably vast world around us. In the context of the climate crisis, the experience of extreme temperatures takes on a double meaning: what may be a voluntarily adventure for members of the audience is a perilous everyday reality for many. Joined this time by Zden Brungot Svíteková, the SVUNG Research Group yet again explores topical social and ecological questions through the body, while involving the audience in this reflection through their own physical experience. (Judit Böröcz, curator)
Danube - Sauna - Cold River Water - Steaming Bodies
Who has the right to experience cold as the globe is heating up? How long will we still have access to snowy surroundings during the dark months? A participatory performance that reinterprets our relationship with the winter landscape, while also subverting the pleasantly sweaty experience of the sauna. We build on familiar elements and offer a new perspective to look at heat, cold, and facing what we fear.
Cold Comfort helps us to experience how extreme cold and heat can be educational. Listening to interviews with experts in mountaineering, ice sculpting and experimental health research, the question arises. The question is a rhetorical one, giving space to a lament. We open up the experience of meditation to the intense changes in temperature extremes to see if it helps us to experience (even momentary) full presence. What if nature is not peaceful, calming and relaxing, but powerful, scary and enormous. Feeling at once delightfully insignificant and yet deeply alive in the unfathomable scale of the world’s structure.
The guided phase of the program lasts approximately 100 minutes. Afterward, participants are free to use the sauna, reflecting on the shared experience – and, in a broader sense, on coping strategies for facing the harsh world -through loosely framed questions.
Important information:
An essential part of the performance is the sauna experience and a recommended cold (full body) dip in the Danube. Since we are playing in a public place, please bring a swimming suit with you, furthermore slippers or beach shoes are recommended for comfortable and safe walking on the pebble beach. If you can, come with easily removable layers and bring a towel.
Credits
Created by: Luca BORSOS, Kinga SZEMESSY, Napsugár TRÖMBÖCZKY
Co-performers (dunaPart): to be announced
Cold experts: László MÉCS, István GÁBORECZ
Narration: Fanni NÁNAY, Pál NYÁRY
Production assistance: Fanni NÁNAY
Co-production partners: Placcc Festival, minus20degree biennial, Plateau Blo - Salmzkammergut 2024, Salzburg Sauna
Previous saunas: SaunaTruck Hungary, Plateau Blo - Floating Sauna
Special thanks: Dávid SOMLÓ, Zden Brungot SVÍTEKOVÁ, Máté KŐRÖSI, Fanni KÁRPÁTI
Tours, Festivals
Minus20degree, Flachau (AT),2024.
Plus20degree, Salzburg (AT), 2024.
Floating Sauna - Saunatalks, Plateau Blo, Gmunden (AT), 2024.
PLACCC Festival winter edition, Budapest (HU) 2025.
Next Feszt by Trafo, Budapest, (HU) 2025.
PLACCC x Valyo Sauna events, Budapest (HU), 2026.
Bio
SVUNG Research Group (HU) was founded in 2019. SVUNG is an everchanging cluster of dancers, dance pedagogues and applied theater experts. We are working at the crossover of disciplines like (eco)somatics, participatory performance, education, nature trailing and sustainable visual art. As a movement based research group we design site sensitive and context specific performances, immersive installations, workshops, pre-performance warm-ups. At the core, our projects invite the participants to explore together, experience our environment (including human built or by animals inhabited spaces) and connect with the more-than-human society through movement and somatics based participatory dramaturgy. By this, we aim to foster a shift in perspective, hosting a space where one loses the ego and meets the eco. We are a non-hierarchical research based collective of FLINTA artists. We prioritize collaboration of different disciplines – as a group, as we share diverse expertise; by inviting experts of various fields related to our research topic (eg. mounteneer, geologist, architect, food designer, etc.); and co-thinking with our site or landscape, the (hi)story, data and dramaturgy it offers.
Founders and current members:
Kinga SZEMESSY (HU/AT) - PhD at Mozarteum and University of Salzburg; BA Dancer (HU); MA Dance Antrophology (Erasmus Mundus - NO, FR, HU, UK); hiking instructor, rock climber, aquatic bodyworker.
Luca BORSOS (HU) - BA Acting (ES); BA Applied Theater (HU); permaculture, backpacking, herbalism.
Napsugár TRÖMBÖCZKY (HU/CZ) - BA Applied Theater (HU); puppetry training; socially engaged performance maker, biomaterials and eco-dyes, foraging and food design.
Contact