INTER.FEAR is an artistic collaboration between South African choreographer and performer, Athena Mazarakis and Hansel Nezza. An immersive theatrical encounter that delves into that most basic, common and essential human emotion: fear. INTER.FEAR weaves together a raw physicality with an evocative stage design and cutting edge interactive digital art to explore the constant and insidious presence of fear in our contemporary lives: a presence that mediates and interferes with our every encounter. Tegan Bristow's breathtaking interactive digital interfaces alongside Jenni-lee Crewe's sparse poetic stage design and Liannallull and Nezza's haunting score combine to draw the audience into the twilight spaces of the psyche where fears reside. Inter.Fear emerges out of a shorter work originally commissioned by and presented at Dance Umbrella 2012.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer and fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
- Frank Herbert
Created & Performed by Athena Mazarakis & Hansel Nezza
Interactive Digital Artist: Tegan Bristow
Designer: Jenni-lee Crewe
Lighting Designer: Barry Strydom
Original Musical Score: Liannallull & Hansel Nezza
Administrative Assist.: Mmakgosi Kgabi
Reh. Stage Manager: Sibusiso Ndumndum
Props assist.: Naomi van Niekerk
Prod. Photographer: Christo Doherty
Production MARABULA barcelona • berlin: Agnes Forn & Elpida Theodorakakou
A coproduction of MARABULA barcelona • berlin & Athena Mazarakis
Inter.Fear has been generously supported by the National Arts Council South Africa, National Arts Festival South Africa, the Goethe-Institut, the Embassy of Spain in South Africa: Mzansicultura, Institut Ramón Llull.
Video by Gemma Pastor
"...Inter.Fear takes our hand and walks us into the darkness upon which our phobias feed. With choreography that caresses even as it challenges, it does not attempt to alleviate our anxiety, but rather to bring us to terms with our misgivings. Sits us down at the same table.
It is not an easy dance. Literally. Inter.Fear doesn't offer any solutions to our timidity.
It is uncompromising. (...)
Athena Mazarakis and Hansel Nezza do not flinch from this uneasy desire but embrace it in movement that is at times tender, at times agitated, yet throughout as all-consuming as the spectacle before which we tremor.
This…meditation on misgiving, this…dance of disquietude is inseparable from the stage upon which it takes place. Jenni-Lee Crewe has, with lighting designer Barry Strydom and digital artist Tegan Bristow, turned the norms of set design on its head. Creates a space that does not create a platform for the performance, it dances with it.
It is clear this crew have a shared vision, a rare mutual creativity that reaches beyond the sum of its parts. Lighting and set design are interwoven with movement and an original score by Liannallul and Hansel Nezza to make darkness, the lack of light, as visible as light itself. (..)
This is a work that strives to reach beyond rationality, to speak to that irrational angst, that unspoken trepidation, that universal intimate inner agitation. Not to shine a light on it. No, that would immediately destroy that with which it seeks to communicate. Light, sight, are inadequate here, in these recesses. Better touch, tenderness, raw embrace. For it is only darkness. There is nothing to fear." — Steve Kretzmann
"...Their physicality generates a vocabulary of dance that is understood within this framework of meaning provided by the initial dialogue. Their seed, fear, grew steadily throughout the piece and it was interesting to see how it unfolded seamlessly with the aid of digital art, set, music and dialogue. What impressed me most was its ability to be present among us without invading our physical space. Boundaries were pushed, not physical but conceptual boundaries." - Dean Kriel
Report by Tarryn Ross and Candice Ford
Inter.Fear is dance that examines the physiological reactions of humans to their fear - logical or illogical. The piece uses a very minimalist set that makes use of juxtapositions between light and dark to convey a sense of being afraid. The dancers and choreographers of this work, Athena Mazarakis and Hansel Nezza, speak to cueTV about their choices around showing fear through movement and body language as well as how fear can take over your life if you let it.
