“when you start to sing yourself in the deep dark forest”

facingX is an anti-musical on temporality, set against the backdrop of extinction – our coming nothingness, which already surrounds our little boxes of life. It blurs the boundaries between theatre and dance, questioning the very nature of dance itself.

When does movement become meaning(ful)? What remains when the music stops?

We explore how music strengthens representation, while silence and stillness reveal the political stakes of presence – in the moments when the audience begins to hear their own breath.

At once a satire and a love letter, facingX both cherishes and critiques culture – embodied through classical music and language – as humanity’s most intricate response to its own impermanence. It is a farewell, a commemoration, and an invitation to reimagine how nothingness might hold us together.

Created through international collaboration between a Hungarian artistic researcher, an American choreographer, Finnish actors, and a Slovakian composer, facingX stages disappearance as a shared act of becoming.

Mise an scene: Balint Barabas Szigeti
Choreography: Kadence Neill
Performers: Jenni Murtonen, Li Krook, Olli Kalliala, Vivi Kangasniemi
Composer: Jan Stevuliak

Special thanks:
Rita Csáky-Bogár and the Budapest Strauss Symphonic Orchestra for the Blue Danube
Third Planet for providing the song To Be Gone
Maze-Kalauz Márton for the song: Melankólikus Dallam
Overflow for the G6 remix
Olli Kalliala for the song: Mä en aio
and Ben Neill for The Chase

language: English, Finnish (the performance does not require any language skills)
duration: 75 min
notes: audience participation