About The Symptoms

Photo: Gábor Dusa

Réka Szabó dancer, choreographer has been building her own dance company since 2002, recently reborn in 2006 as The Symptoms. In her work, she likes to rely on the personality and creativity of actors and dancers, and stresses the importance of thinking together with them. She dances a part herself in pieces such as Chance, Nylon Revue, You are being so strange today and Clearing the Attic. In 2002, she started working with Vera Jarovinszkij and Dániel Szász, both of whom went on to become founding members of The Symptoms, a dance company Szabó recruited from young talent she had attracted over the years.

The first piece conceived by this company, Chance – a game of dance for science, is a unique blend of a lecture in mathematics and a dance performance. The piece played at the Soros Studio Theater Days of 2003, and was booked by several venues outside Hungary, including in Sepsiszentgyörgy in Romania and Graz in Austria. Due to the unprecedented success it has enjoyed among critics and audiences alike, Chance is still often put on by noted alternative theaters in Budapest.

Clearing the Attic – a study in motion and psyche in two parts, which premiered in January 2004 at the MU Theater in Budapest for the L1 Festival, mounted an experiment in correlating text with movement. It was at this stage that Szabó’s permanent creative team enlisted the dancer Anna Réti and István Gőz, an actor and pantomime artist. The show was invited to several locations outside Hungary, including the Ars Poetica Festival in Bratislava.

December 2004 saw the premiere of From Scratch – free associations for actors and dancers, which in 2005 collected the Best Production Award at the Veszprém Dance Festival, the Best Dance Performance Prize awarded by young theater critics at the Alternative Theater Festival in Szeged and, in 2006, won the Critics’ Prize at the Budapest Fringe Festival. For the first time in the history of the company László Kövesdi made a vital contribution as a co-author and actor in this dance-play. The piece was invited to Theater ZAK, Gdansk (PL), to the 10. International Dance Theatres Festival in Lublin, to the XIV. International Workshops of Contemporary Dance in Poznan (PL), to Theater Alfred ve dvore, Prague (CZ), and to Theater A4, Bratislava (SK).

In 2005, the street performance entitled Nylon revue was invited to the Saraievo Theater Festival of 2006, where it garnered the prize for the Most Original Show.

Also in 2005, Szabó co-authored and staged Buddha in sorrow – or don’t climb up or you’ll fall down with dancer Ákos Dózsa and the author-dramatist Krisztián Peer. Based on short stories by Ervin Lázár, this piece continues the company’s trademark experiment in expanding artistic horizons by blurring the lines of demarcation between several genres and modes of expression. In 2008, the production was awarded the Grand Prize at the Veszprém Dance Festival.

Cold pack – a laydown comedy in one inact premiered in 2006, and has continuously toured theater festivals in Hungary, winning the BESZT Prize at the Szeged Festival of Alternative Theater in 2006.

Séance – the club of arrhythmic Hearts is a piece commissioned by the Budapest Fall Festival, premiered on October 7, 2006, nominated - as one of the twelve best contemporary performance in Hungary in 2006 - to Lábán Rudolf prize.

 Alibi - an hour and half of interrogation with lots of music and dance co-produced with the Thalia Theater, premiered in May 2007 in Budapest, was featured on the program of the Contemporary Drama Festival in 2007. Then, in 2008, it garnered the Grand Prize at the Alternative Theater Festival in Hungary, as well as the Forgács Prize for the “Funniest Moment” at the Deszka Festival in Debrecen, and it was shown to great acclaim in a strong international lineup at the Festival Theatre European Regions in Hradec Králové, the Czech Republic.

Nothing there - or do dreams go to sleep during the day? is a piece commissioned by the Trafo Theater premiered in February 2008 makes extensive use of sophisticated interactive technologies courtesy of SZTAKI, the Computer and Automation Research Institute of MTA, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

You trash! - big cleaning in the big outdoors, with a big scum band is the third street production by The Symptoms presented in May 2008 focusing on the topic of waste, this unwelcome by-product of the consumer society. Laced with music, dance, and elements of pantomime, this street performance offers an ironic look at an acute, globally unsolved social problem, while holding a mirror to the audience.

"Szabo's contemporary dance theater has yielded what are arguably the most fascinating performances on the hungarian stage today, each a different take on the theme of mingling dance, text, music, drama, and humor."
(Sisso in Nepszabadsag, january 13, 2007)