Imre Vass is an independent performing artist, dancer and choreographer, based in Budapest. “I host environments for a non-harmful exploration of the comfort zone, to overcome the uncomfortable while tuning, training and sharpening the muscles of attention. Playing with expectations, flirting with ambiguities and obvious choices while swerving away from the mainstream I intend to liberate energies of the participants of the event (both performers and spectators). For me dance helps to gain mobility and flexibility both in body and mind, the choreographic framework provides a platform to palpate stiffness and blockages of physical, psychological and social bodies with the promise of mobilizing the stagnant and grounding the unstable.

Imre is currently working on the project RELAX, to be premiered in November at Trafó House of Contemporary Arts in Budapest. RELAX is a performance but also an artistic and choreographic research in search for a common practice, a specific way of being together through different techniques and formats related to relaxation and stress management. Besides, he is playing his repertoire pieces: in_form, the Lábán Rudolf and Péter Halász award winner Game changer, and PERSONAL TRAINER. In 2024 he will articulate his artistic interest and voice through research, while he will keep on unfolding artworks and satellite events from the project RELAX.

Take a look at his Website.
 

This summer Imre Vass has daily relaxation sessions at Sziget Festival in Budapest, in preparation for the premiere of his performance RELAX, which happens at Trafo Budapest on 28 November 2023. 

"We are dancers, choreographers, teachers, body work practitioners and practitioners of other kinds: Csilla Nagy, Júlia Gaál, Luca Kancsó and Imre Vass all based in Budapest, Hungary. RELAX is initiated by Imre Vass.
Relaxation is a state of the body and mind where tension and anxiety are absent. Relaxation and recharging are necessary for the body to cope with everyday stress. In a relaxed state, it is possible to work with stress factors, physical and mental stiffness. The culture of relaxation and rest is permeated by the idea of productivity, encouraging us to fill our free time with as useful and active programmes as possible. Instead of resting, we often choose entertainment - remaining as active participants in the consumption cycle, actually deprived of relaxation and recharge.
In this research phase we spend time relaxation and stress. How and why are we tensed? What ways do we know or ready to discover to get in a relaxed state? What comes up when we dance or become still? Insight or trauma - shit to deal with? We investigate what is our emotional reaction to certain stressors. How do we rest, relax, digest and integrate? We are willing to locate physical and mental stiffness and blockages and playfully we push to release.
We explore bodywork techniques as well as working with improvisation and imagery, we believe in the healing power of imagination.
We invite you to come and spend time with us. We would like to share with you where we are right now in the process and curious about your thoughts, insights, stories regarding the relation of stress and relaxation."

Hi Imre! What is your plan for your residency in Zagreb?

“During my stay at Plesni centar Tala I will be busy researching and articulating my solo dance performance practice. In this period of my life and career there is too much thinking and worrying so I will just simply lose myself to dance. I will embrace a prolific attitude and hopefully I won't be ashamed of mixing various approaches to improvisation and dance. From deep dreaming to shamanic journeying, from authentic movement to lyrical dance I will do my best to attract DANCE to show up. And of course all the fruits of my labour will be double checked by the heart meridian.”

Imre Vass invites to an Open House in the course of his residency in Zagreb:

Dear colleagues in the field of dance, choreography and performance.

I invite you to spend time with me inside and around the dance space in the middle of my residency. I’d like to share with you what is cooking in the studio but I would be open to have an exchange about what moves and motivates, interests and inspires us to keep the flame of dance during these times.

My practice is based on working with improvisation. Right now, I am mapping various driving forces, tools, sensitivities to enable movement, to access immediacy. In this mapping I embrace a prolific approach and while I am wading in the swamp of possibilities, I am nick-naming, defining these tools and not minding losing myself into dance while I am doing the research. It is a way of processing, thinking by and while moving, figuring out ways while I am figuring the contours of a not yet seen but felt body of work that emanates from my own soma. Verbalisation, contextualisation using and playing with language is present in the studio too. As well as I am interested in how an action or event is situated, framed and how quickly it can be modified, how can we access knowledge and control over the muscles of attention to glide through different point of views. 

The Open House takes place on 10 February in Tala Ple(j)s in Zagreb.

Reading the room is an ongoing improvisational and performative practice that invites the audience to witness a journey of investigating precarious routines of increasing the sensitivity of attention. It tries to braid the multitude of strands of information and possibilities to weave them into one singularity. 

The term "reading the room" refers to an ability to pick up subtle, non-verbal cues of group of people, understanding the mood and the atmosphere of a social situation. In addition to this the performance explores how the locality (physical parameters, the genius loci and the context) informs the performance where it takes place.

The "room" is autonomous and erratic. Only the ones who are willing to step across the threshold and lean closer towards it will hear its message. The "Room" will be present and will try to make contact. While some draws parallel between the room of the Zone (Stalker), the waiting room of The Black Lodge (Twin Peaks) and The Swedenborgs Room (Riget) it distances itself from those.