AZ APOSTOL

One thing we know for certain about the 21st century is that it will be when the survivors of the Holocaust take their last breath. Every single one of them. Slowly but surely, they are leaving us to our own devices. “Do we want to forget what happened, as if it were a bad dream, or do we want to accept the events as human civilization’s greatest trauma?” the author Péter Esterházy once asked.

Recirquel’s new production, Paradisum explores the myth of rebirth following the silence of a destroyed world, where the means of communication is the body, and the only common language is movement. The creatures of this idyllic existence unfold from the ever-changing, swirling natural forces of the ‘fabric of life’ that pulsates around them, so they can reach the anima mundi, the world soul, through scenes of purification, birth, awakening and ritual.

It is not exclusively Hungarians that Müpa Budapest honours with the prestigious title of Artist of the Season: foreign musicians, such as the Russian piano virtuoso Denis Matsuev, for instance, have also been distinguished in this way. The prerequisites are obvious: a high level of professional excellence and a fruitful relationship with Müpa Budapest.