7 Hours Difference Part II: Simple Present Tense

‘Present Simple Tense’ is a full evening length devised dance theater work created by the renowned guest artist Tatyana Solokova in collaboration with the cast. The piece is the second part of the international collaboration project between Tatyana Sokolova at New Bulgarian University (NBU) in Sofia and Tzveta Kassabova at University of Michigan, Department of Theatre and Drama. The first piece premiered this May in Sofia and will be performed regularly at NBU throughout the next year. Both works bridge the gap between the genres of visual art, music, theater, and movement. They explore similar themes and subject matters, but viewed from two very different cultures that are more than an ocean apart. At the center of our project is the question ‘How much does one need to be happy?’ – how many things, how much money, how much work, how much interaction, how much loneliness, how much care, how much dreaming, how much playing, how much talking? But also, when is it too much, what happens when a line is crossed? A metaphor and a starting point for our exploration is logorrhea – a state of excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness. We extrapolate this notion into many physical, behavioral and social aspects and interactions. We also explore human senses – how and why do we prioritize the use of our senses, what happens when we try to explore each of them individually? What happens when we try to liming the predominant sense in various circumstances and how can that generate movement material and influence the overall structure of the work? Our overarching question is what is idiosyncratic, what is cultural and what is universal?