Frame of reference
Is it worth risking security for freedom?
Filip Löbl · Performance · 2025
“Frame of reference” is a contemporary dance piece by Filip Löbl for four dancers, inspired by and developed with a focus on the potential diversity in today's society. The aim of this work is to explore what it is like to feel and behave differently from what is considered “normal.” In this dance piece, a dancer portrays a person who feels and thinks differently and strives to follow their own path. He/she struggles with an inner conflict caused by the society into which he/she was born: Is it worth risking security for freedom? The other dancers represent society and its defined system.
We believe that we are free individuals from birth, but is that really the case in our civilization? Whether we are aware of it or not, society has already made decisions for us, and from the very beginning we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We are convinced that we live in freedom, and therefore it is completely normal for us to live within this system. Is it conceivable to us that our demanding
lives and the decisions we make are flawed? What if we paused for a moment and thought about it? Can we really make a difference?
Credits
Critique by Evelin Koberg
Depicting the web — the strands or threads — of a relationship, whether private or socio-political, ranks among the themes most frequently explored in movement imagery, in dance. Nevertheless, the nearly hour-long contemporary dance piece in which Filip Löbl choreographically takes up a significant social thread is a particularly remarkable and atmospherically dense portrayal: one that, in discreet yet precisely illuminated scenes (lighting by Reinier Martinez Baduilla), glosses over nothing; one that, through clear, harsh, and at times brutal moments, exposes the merciless power play within success-driven structures.
Here, however, the focus is not so much— as has often been the case — on the overtly hierarchical aspect, but rather on the dramatic tension between a group compelled to function in enforced homogeneity and a dropout — in this case, a female one.
Past performances
