Nothing Can Surprise Us is a self fulfilling prophecy: it plays with strategies of fictionalizing one's life and how these scenarios become real through the process of rehearsing them. A performance combining cinematographic temporal dimension with that of live arts, Nothing Can Surprise Us is a performance about (the impossibility of) preparing for the future.

Solaris

Nothing Can Surprise Us is a performance about preparing for the future. On stage, a small crew is filming a catastrophy survival scene. But the scene gets constantly interrupted by scenes from other films. Where these other films come from and why remains a mystery. As they try to make sense of what is going on, the catastrophy they rehearsed seems to have come true already. But is it really a catastrophy? And what is going on? Nothing Can Surprise Us is a self fulfilling prophecy: it plays with strategies of fictionalizing one's life and how these scenarios become real through the process of rehearsing them.

The initial idea comes from the so called Nothing Can Surprise Us-day that used to take place once a year in former Yugoslavia. On that day, the entire country would rehearse a situation of nationwide catastrophy. It was everyone's favorite day. Rehearsing a catastrophy turned the country into a big playground. However, when the war really started, no one really knew what to do.

Based on and inspired by the scenes from the following movies: Das Boot by Wolfgang Petersen, Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky, Birds by Alfred Hitchcock, Beau Travail by Claire Denis, 2001 Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove by Stanley Kubrick.

concept & choreography Andrea Bozic | in collaboration with video & concept Julia Willms music Robert Pravda | performers: Guillem Mont de Palol, Hendrik de Smedt, Sarah Vanhee | dramaturgical advice: Bram de Sutter |Paul Schimmel | COSTUME: NATHALIE PRAVDA | Technique: Attila nemeth light design:

Production: Frascati | Financial Support: NFPK+ and AFK | Co-production: Sophiensaele, Berlin | Supported by: L'animal a l'esquena, Girona and Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers in the framework of Expedition, Paris

Andrea Bozić is a Croatian choreographer based in Amsterdam, with an educational background in dance, literature, English and new media. She makes interdisciplinary performance work which collides film, dance, theatre and new media. The performances, installations and actions all deal with the issue of presence: imagined presence (It's me but I'm no longer there), inverted presence (Ways to Multiply Yourself), co-presence (Still Life with Man and Woman, announced presence (Telling Future) and faked presence (Nothing Can Surprise Us).

Further Reading:

Still Life_TJonck

The Bozic Paradox (.PDF)