ZONE goes one step further away from the traditional dance-models towards new performances that employ new instruments which are at our disposal. Like in “Deus ex Machina” and in “MADGOD 2.001” the movements originates within the computer and is passed on from there. And above all, a machine itself figures as a dancer: the collaboration with Robotlab enables an industrial robot to participate in the choreography. Its movement –it’s power and infallible precision of high-tech – joins the dancers movements, accompanying the fragility of human dance.

The title ZONE comes from the «Eyecon and jMax Environment»-sensor system, that divides the stage in zones. It consist of a movement capture interactive device which analyses the movements of the dancers, and as an answer to the registered dynamics, “Eyecon” sends out video-images that bring new dynamics onto the stage.

By connecting dancers, visuals, sounds and the robot, a tense relationship is created which is defined not so much by the contrast of convention and association but rather by the attraction between human and technical systems as experienced by the spectator. This is not brought about by a simple aesthetic parallel, but rather by the machine’s crossing the human system and it’s mechanical dimension, thus carrying him off towards new forms of perception and existence.

Ventura lets his uniformed dance-machines or machined-dancers march as if on a glass surface of changing transparency (thanks to the art of lighting).. From a surrounding side band, that acts as a feeding belt of its own processing and as a bay area, it enables the figures into the interior zone where they indulge in a sort of interplay, interoperating without touching or reacting to one another. The movement structures develops into an almost unnoticeable crescendo synchronised by a slow pulse accompanied by half-plausible half-synthetic suggestive of work noises.
But the attraction should come from two industrial robots…revealing their own bodies in a sense to be equal partners as those with flesh and blood.. the suspense is over extended. The reason being that the attainment of soullessness to serve perfect mechanisation is insistently and depressingly carried out... The startling and actually beautiful dance movements of the machines is its confirmation, and not the alleviating opposite impulse of an enrichment through a subservient spirit, as in the case of the music.. here however, through a sinister notion of the “industrial society”, leads to a dead end.
Tomas Petzold/Dresdner Neuste Nachrichten