Disambiguation

In Disambiguation choreographer and dancer Elisa Zuppini crafts a system where human perception converges with the presence of other-than-human agencies. The sixteen dancers form a pulsing structure in which they extend toward and withdraw from the audience's perceptual field. Like chtonic waves a hybrid circuit of sensation is generated.

The dancers explore an insomniac framework, particularly that of 'post-clubbing' in which the stimulating effects and aftereffects of hedonistic nocturnal life is examined. They perform in a dissociative state of depersonalization, allowing them to resource from something other than conditioned subjectivity. Instead, they take charge of wandering intensities. The identifiable traits of these affects disperse, giving rise to erratic moods across perceptual spectrums. By inhabiting liminal and viscous spaces, the performers explore multiple sensibilities, navigating within the condition of metathreshold (a ceaseless transition, where boundaries dissolve and transformation occurs), where ambiguity itself sculpts tangible states.

Accompanied by deconstructed melodies and industrial rhythms, a haunting gothic trend emerges. Navigating a world erratically attempting to understand itself, Disambiguation reflects on collective agency and how this distributed cognition gives rise to a dramaturgy of affect. 

Ambiguity, Rhythm and the Body – A Conversation with Elisa Zuppini & Zeynep Gündüz

After the performance, lecturer and researcher in dance Zeynep Gündüz will join choreographer Elisa Zuppini in a conversation exploring the ideas behind Disambiguation. The talk will unpack elements of post-clubbing as a lived state—marked by physical exhaustion, fragmented rhythms, and collective anonymity—and consider the role of ambiguity in shaping alternative modes of being. The discussion will also shed light on the creative process of working with a large ensemble and the performers’ contributions to the development of movement and material.