How do you like me?

Knapik is a multi-faceted artist who has studied classical ballet, modern and contemporary dance, and even acting. She has choreographed many of her own dance pieces, acted in films and directed a dance film called There. She performed How do you like me?, a puritan solo piece that shows the dancer’s body as a tool, in Budapest.

 

The piece is all about the physical parameters of the dancer rather than the person, who is nothing more than a robot of flesh and blood.

 

“Dominika. Currently, that person does not exist,” we read in the programme for the performance, and indeed it is as if she has become the embodiment of sport, dissecting everyday movements. Her identity is buried even further when she pulls the T-shirt she is wearing over her head.

 

It’s worth considering the title of the piece. It implies that the body is raw material, clay from which anything can be made. The other – usually the choreographer, but in this case the audience – decide what they want to see.

 

Author: Ágnes Veronika Tóth