ABRAKADABRA by Becker/Moviken/Utzig

‘Abracadabra’ is an ancient and well-known spell. Some believe the word stems from the late antiquity Hebrew habberakha, meaning blessing, while others trace it to the Aramaic abruq ad babra, which translates directly to ‘I will create as I speak’. The performance ABRAKADABRA is a portal, a threshold and a performance – a bodily work that insists on the attempt, on creating itself, again and again, like a pulsating, indeterminate echo.  

In ABRAKADABRA the whole space is speaking, the space itself becomes a voice. The incantation or spell carries a promise of mystique and magic but reveals itself as something tangible through the origin of the word. I will create as I speak grounds the project in practical work, movement, growth, development and action.

In a time when the outlook for the future seems dystopian, could the act of creation, the act of giving life, perhaps give us hope for a new future? Or is this insistence on constant production in general our Achilles’ heel? Are we digging our own grave, dancing ourselves exhausted into darkness – or is it precisely within the attempt, in an abracadabra of artists, that we might glimpse another possible world?