100 Big Entrances, 2012

Donaufestival, Krems, Austria, 2015

XI Baltic Triennial of International Art (“Mindaugas” Triennial), Vilnius, Lithuania, 2012

Palais de Tokyo, Paris, June 2013

On a bare stage Portnoy instructs a dancer to perform a series of choreographic permutations on the theatrical trope of the “big entrance”. Starting quite simply (“Make a big entrance”, “Make a slightly bigger entrance whose difference in intensity might only be noticed in the thumbs.”), the directions become progressively complex and abstract (“Enter with a mixture of shame that you did it, shame that you didn’t do it better, and shame that you’ll never be able to do it again”, “Enter the rumbling chiasmus where the Real and Ideal intersect.”), pushing the dancer’s expressive and interpretive powers to the limit. In a mixture between hyper-realistic acting, dance and pantomime, the performer draws us into the many types of territories (geographic, psychological, political, theoretical, etc.) that one might “enter”.

The entrances are accompanied by a score for timpani drums.

Current version performed by Anatoli Vlassov, Nicola Schössler, Ieva Miseviciute.

Timpani: Gunter Benedikt

In Vilnius, performed by Darius Gumauskas.

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