Artist / Creator

If you wish to pursue a career as mime artist or movement theatre performer, you will soon face the fact that, in order to play, you need to write and direct. In the beginning, similarly to fellow artists, I considered this some sort of nuisance; however, I grew to like this profession owing to the passing of time, to the gradual emergence of ideas, to my ever-widening field of theoretical and practical studies, or to inspiring colleagues. Theatrical creation has become one of my main areas of expertise. I embrace any of its aspects: writer and director first and foremost, choreographer, and advisor.

As writer-director, I created fifteen theatrical mime plays in the past twenty years, including both etude shows (e.g. Presents from the Past and Future and Who Went Forth…) and stand-alone mime dramas (e.g. The Bald Soprano, It Is Also Dance, and The Birth of a Banner), which were regularly invited to theatres as well as festivals and events nationwide and abroad. I love working on productions involving solo, or small or big number of performers since each type of production poses a different challenge and each gives me an exciting task.

I like the nonverbal theatre as I come from it; this is the root of my artistic vision. Nevertheless, my theatrical arts studies directed my attention to prosaic theatre at the beginning of the 2000s. Since then, I have been inclined to use text in theatrical mime plays. I have always been attracted to literature and writing; I hold that verbal and nonverbal instruments are equally important in the theatre. It was a dream coming true when I created SASHA, the complex, one-act play based on Chekov, which I could present as both playwright and director of movement.

In my view, the theatre, regardless of genres, is a system of elements of creation. I love thinking along questions, goals, and messages, according to which I choose the most appropriate instruments. I believe that limitations of genres are only valid in lexicons; in reality, these limitations serve to be transcended – only if we are able to use the elements of the chosen area at a high level.

I have only been able to fully understand the theatre as system since I started working as guest director of movement or choreographer. This area is one of the most complex and the most exciting professional challenge to me because I can assist a process, in which someone else’s ideas take on a form on stage. For this, I need to understand and sense the pillars of the director’s concept and – filtering it through me – to make it into movement, system of gestures, and choreography. I do this in a way that, firstly, a choreography can be applied by a company who have not got any previous nonverbal theatre training and secondly, mime, movement theatre, gesture theatre, and the visual elements of the given theatrical genre can complement one another in a harmonic system. It is a special experience to participate in such team work, may it be the creation of movement systems overarching a whole play (e.g. richard2nixon, SASHA), the realization of choreographies of gesture theatre or theatrical mime (e.g. Cursed Cows), or professional advice on nonverbal expression of meaning (e.g. Tamás Dunai–Mari Kiss: Szeretsz engem?! [Do you love me?!]).