Steps towards the horizon
Modern people, addicted to their screens, seem to have forgotten how to look. With a sound installation on the banks of the Scheldt, the Hessdalen-based theatre company Post aims to rekindle our appreciation for the view.
‘The distance is far away,’ observe the creators of 15 149ft. Modern technology and urbanisation have trapped us between screens and concrete, causing us to risk forgetting the reach of our very own eyes and ears. According to Post from Hessdalen, this loss of perspective might well be linked to our capacity for imagination. Are we still capable of broadening our horizons?
This performance takes its name from the number of footsteps thatseparates us at sea level from the curvature of the Earth. After the Dutch Oerol docks the versatile company at Zomer in Antwerp along the Scheldt, where a giant spool, a seemingly endless rope and a sound system are set up. Fifty minutes long will that rope be the reel be reeled in, as if every bit were a step of the audience towards the horizon suggests.
The landscapes we ‘see’ along the way are set to music by a disorienting piece by Thomas Smetryns, reminiscent of the sound of passing boats. Yet this composition, performed on trumpet, tuba and a mobile music machine, is too haphazard to truly transport us. 15 149ft presents itself as an invitation to experience the depth of a landscape, but its music seems rather to drown that out.
Consequently it loses its intriguing starting point all too quickly. With its whirling spool and a sensitive story Post adds from Hessdalen a poetic dimension to the eternal quest for the unknown, but along the way we keep asking ourselves: if the performance the rustling of the Scheldt wants to let us hear, why does she play there over it?
