Idiot-Syncrasy


 

We started with wanting to change the world with a performance. We felt like idiots.

Then we danced a lot. We jumped. We called on the folk traditions of Sardinia and the Basque Country. We sang. We jumped some more. We committed.

Now we promise to stick together. We promise to persevere. We promise to do our best.

Idiot-Syncrasy was nominated for the National Dance Awards 2015, the Total Theatre Awards 2015 and it was selected for Aerowaves 2015 and for the British Council Showcase 2015.

  • Created and Performed by: Igor Urzelai and Moreno Solinas
  • Artistic Associate: Simon Ellis
  • Voice Coach: Melanie Pappenheim
  • Lighting Design: Seth Rook Williams
  • Sound Design: Alberto Ruiz Soler
  • Set and Costume Design: KASPERSOPHIE
  • Photographer: Alicia Clarke
  • Thanks to: Roberto Casarotto, Dantzagunea,Keren Kossow, Louise Jardin, Helen Holden, Wieke Eringa, El Graner, Justyna Latoch, Lola Maury, Laura Ortu, Alicia Otxandategi, SÍN Culturalis Központ, Jitka Tumova and everyone who has helped us.
  • Commissioned by The Place and created using funding from Arts Council funding through Grants for the Arts and with support from TIR danza, Yorkshire Dance, Cambridge Junction, Centro per la Scena Contemporanea, Bassano (Italy) and BAD Festival in Bilbao.

    • All songs are versions created by Igor and Moreno and sung live based on the following originals:

      • Procurade ‘e moderare
        • Language: Sardinian
        • Lyrics: Francesco Ignazio Mannu
      • Zure Begiek
        • Language: Basque
        • Lyrics by: Daniel Landarte
        • Music: Mikel Laboa
      • Quanto t’ho amato
        • Language: Italian
        • Author: Roberto Benigni
      • Al Alba
        • Language: Spanish
        • Author: Luis Eduardo Aute
      • When I’m Sixty-Four
        • Language: English
        • Authors: Lennon-McCartney

 

‘One of the most stunning, innovative, bold, daring, clever, funny and sexy shows I have seen in years’
✭✭✭✭✭
THE QUOTIDIAN TIMES


‘One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen’
ARTS AT MICHIGAN


‘Unmissable! A simple but immersive performance that defies all initial expectations and explanations.’
✭✭✭✭✭
EVERYTHING THEATRE


‘Idiot-Syncrasy is a warm, fabulous and funny show, but it also makes us vividly and unsettlingly aware of the altered states that we and the dancers can undergo during the course of a performance.’
✭✭✭✭
THE GUARDIAN


‘Urzelai and Solinas deliver totally focused performance that welcomes an audience into their world but leaves just enough ambiguity to tantalise the brain. Performed with splitsecond accuracy and with exhausting agility this is a piece that surpasses the sum of its parts. It’s deceptively simple structure belying a piece of intense integrity and emotion. It may be hard to capture on paper, but this hour with Igor and Moreno will live long in the memory. Groundbreaking’
✭✭✭✭½
GLEN PIERCE, THE PUBLIC REVIEWS


‘Idiot-Syncrasy is synchronous but far from idiocy. It is an evolving exploration of strength, unity, humour, hope and tenderness that is unexpectedly life-affirming. Let them in and you will feel the love. It’s a wonderful thing.’
PETER JACOBS, THE PUBLIC REVIEWS
✭✭✭✭


In contrast to the variously mind-blowing, soul-destroying or trance-inducing states that other minimalist choreography can induce, Idiot-Syncrasy feels very human. More than that: humane. […] The performance seems to acknowledge the togetherness and the separation of dancers, audience, and the world beyond: them, us, the rest. I left feeling an expanded person.
SANJOY ROY, LONDONDANCE


‘Idiot-Syncrasy is entertaining and different, and engages you with waiting (and wanting) to see what they do next; it may be an intense and sometimes challenging show to watch, but worth it: this is minimalism done well […] Idiot-Syncrasy is certainly full of imagination and originality, and it’s easy to see why it has been enjoying so much popularity in Europe.’
CLOUD DANCE


‘Igor and Moreno […] tease out where idiosyncrasy and love lie within the rhythms of human life.’
ROSALIND BOUVERIE


‘The show as a whole is bold, self-assured, and alive.’
BROADWAY BABY


‘At once loose and improvisation-like, poetic and entertaining.’
A YOUNGER THEATRE


‘Idiot-Syncrasy demonstrates once more the talent and skills of Solinas and Urzelai. […] The show seeks to investigate the relationship we have with our own body, with our desires and with others. It seems to say: ‘Jump with us, know yourself and take a stand!’
(instart.info by Oswald)


‘Utterly fresh, genuine and immediate.’
Wieke Eringa, CEO of Yorkshire Dance