Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango (programme from the performance)
Dogtroep Broadens Infectious Comedy (MF Dnes, 25. 3. 1996)

Photos from the performance
Poster of Performance





Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango

World premiere on March 22, 1996 in the Archa Theatre

Welcome to Kulhavý Tango Cool, Heavy Tango
Prague ladies. "Praagse dames" is the title of a song written and composed by Dogtroep in 1991 in Prague, when making a performance in Mala Strana. Now, five years later, four Prague ladies join Dogtroep to perform Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango.

Dogtroep
Dogtroep is a Dutch theatre company that makes large-scale outdoor and intimate indoor performances, with fine arts, live music, acting and technology. Since 1975, we have travelled to several countries to make performances for and with the people from different cultures.

The performances
Our aim in making a performance is not telling a story from head to tail. We don't start with a theme, nor with a text. We work as in a laboratory: we develop mechanical fantasy-constructions, a grotesque character or costume, a structure in music and sound. One element inspires the other: the theatrical and dramatic 'mix' results in a Dogtroep-performance. We show a pictorial world, rough images, with a sense of humour, inviting you to let yourself be carried away by our or your own fantasy.

The music
Dogtroep composes music inspired from international tours. Its influence ranges from swinging township-music from South Africa to the Balkan melancholic tunes; from irregular rhythms to smooth ballads; from classical songs to hip-hop. The source of sound can be that of a trumpet, accordion, piano, tuba, violin, as well as self-created instruments: truck wheel rims as a bell, plastic tubes as a pan flute, organ pipes with airbed pumps, a 1000 litre schnapps-barrel as a drum, cowbells as a piano, matchboxes as shakers, garbage cans as drums, a spade in a bucket with pebbles, or children's toys. And once in a ship dock: how would you imagine the sound of a drowning orchestra? For nearly every project, musicians are invited. In Poland, for example, it was the marching band from the Polish Railways, in The Netherlands a classical string sextet and an old men's choir.
          Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango is a kindergarten for the voice. The voice as a tool - its possibilities, its limits: a human chicken; a dark-brown sound; the 50 Hertz vocalisation of a vacuum cleaner; the raspy sound of a crocodile in an opera; the high, blood curdling scream that paralyses your nerves.
          Musicians from Prague were invited to work with us: an opera singer, two 'all-round' singers and actors, a 16 year old violin-player and a singing piano player.

The site
For Dogtroep, in making theatre and music, the site is an important source of inspiration: an empty factory with machines out of order; a snowy plain where skiers go for Olympic gold; a ship dock where millions of litres of water burst in. But also the spirit of a place has its influence: a land in war, a market square where people hang out of the surrounding windows, a sandy beach on a rainy day.
          We have worked everywhere except in a theatre. And now, here we are, invited by the Archa Theatre, confronted with an underground "black box". An anonymous building, with a smooth floor, all kinds of technical equipment, but no obstacles to react upon. To get to know the place, we undressed it. What was left was underground black darkness: death, sadness, loneliness, claustrophobia. Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango. We wish you a nice evening, though.

Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango is conceived and made by
Udo Akemann (actor, constructor)
Marco Biagoni (light designer, inventor)
Ine Billenkamp (costume designer)
Gabriela Eibenová (singer)
Marketa Hájková (musician)
Jurg Hamunger (technique)
Andrea Jurèová (singer, musician)
Csilla Lakatos (actor, dancer)
Ted van Leeuwen (composer, musician)
Howie Lotker (singer, actor)
Irena Perclová (singer, actor)
Thierry van Raay (costume designer, constructor, actor)
Joey Ruigrok van der Werven (technician, inventor)
Threes Schreurs (director)
Wieger Woudsma (actor, singers)
Jan Wrána (singer, actor)
Jos Zandvliet (composer, musician )

Production
Yvonne Franquinet (production manager Dogtroep)
Titia Daniels (production assistant Dogtroep)
Don Nixon (production manager Archa Theatre)
Michal Hrabáò (production assistant Archa Theatre)

Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango is a co-production of the Dogtroep and Archa Theatre.


Kulhavý tango - Cool, Heavy Tango was made possible by the support of: Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschappen, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Theater Instituut Nederland, Ministry of Culture of Czech Republic.





Dogtroep Broadens Infectious Comedy

from the snowy hillsides of the Olympic Albertville and the watery streams of the Expo in Seville, the Dutch group Dogtroep has come out with their project Kulhavý Tango - Cool, Heavy Tango. In the production, Dogtroep continues in their unique manner - they are greatly inspired by free spaces where they start their "show" which combines music, ingenious instruments and the chasing of fantastical characters.
          The performance in Prague begins with the spirit of its name, and thus in its rhythm, it slightly stumbles. However, after a long exposition, when the strength of the characters appear in the dark space, Kulhavý tango quickly picks up its tempo. The actors move within the space, uncovering its tricks and possibilities, various objects unexpectedly come to life, a man manipulates a death woman and meets a bald-head man who lives in a huge bed residing in the huge bed on wheels…
          It is true that Dogtroep doesn't create a production based on a written story. Nor does the performance, during which the audience ponders on the meaning of a leg, which the dancer takes from his neck after half an hour. Kulhavý tango is free succession of pictures, fantasy, games, grotesques and black humor. It is a fascinating spectacle of comedy which is unfettered... the audience departs into the darkness of the night singing the melody from "kulhavý tango", and slightly swaying from side to side..

Z. A. Tichý, MF Dnes, 25. 3. 1996