When I entered the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, some seats were still empty. The usual babble of voices was in the air, but something was already happening on stage. A group of dancers were warming up – stretching, practicing steps. Mostly in pairs, sometimes alone, sometimes in threes. Some of them had a visible disability.

It took me a moment to realize that this movement was already part of the performance. There was no music, just silence, interrupted by quiet panting, strained breathing and groans of physical exertion.

About thirty, maybe forty minutes passed. It felt intimate, almost as if you were watching something not meant to be seen by strangers.

Then a deep, pulsating beat set in. The dancers' movements began to change. They reacted to music with vibrating, twitching gestures, as if the rhythm was moving them from within. The tension in the room grew noticeably.

And then – a break. Suddenly, remixed pop songs blared from the speakers. The mood shifted again, both among the dancers and the audience: more cheerful, exuberant, liberated.

One by one, the dancers came to the fore, dancing for themselves – confidently, playfully. The audience laughed, clapped, and let themselves be carried away. Silent observation had turned into a celebration of freedom.

At the very end of the show, one dancer – a man in a wheelchair – moved into the spotlight. The music had stopped and the room fell silent once more. Breaking the silence, he began addressing individual audience members directly: complimenting someone’s eyes, making others laugh.

He pressed a button, and his wheelchair honked loudly. The stage went completely dark. Only the pulsing lights of the chair remained – and the audience rose in a standing ovation.

I had never seen anything quite like it. I was amazed at how much the show carried me away and touched me emotionally – even though I couldn't fully interpret what I was seeing.

The performance by Unusual Symptoms, a contemporary dance company based at Theater Bremen in Germany, was a touching exploration into the tensions between equality and difference, as well as control and liberation. Meeting with Adrienn Hód and production manager Alexandra Morales the following day, we discussed the complexity of acknowledging bodily differences, while also emphasizing a common humanity – to find balance in disbalance.

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Congratulations on your successful show. In this performance, you work with an ensemble of professional dancers who are living with and without disability. How did the idea for the show first come about?

Adrienn: The idea came from Alexandra and Gregor (Runge), co-directors of Unusual Symptoms. It was my second experience with the company, but it was my first mixed-ability creation. At first, we didn’t know in which direction it would go but it was clear that we wanted a group of professional dancers with diverse physicalities.

Alexandra: We were looking for non-normative bodies. A very wide term, but during the audition, we understood that we wanted to work with dancers with physical disabilities.

Adrienn: We did a lot of research and realized how many artists with disabilities do not have access to dance or performing arts education. But we wanted to work with professional performers.

What did you learn in the process?

Alexandra: I once had an experience in a workshop with a group of disabled and non-disabled dancers. We had to pair up and dance and I was dancing with somebody in a wheelchair. As I guided his wheelchair, he eventually started to hang out of it. I thought that was part of the dance but then someone came running over and put him back up. I was told that he couldn’t hold his body on his own. In this moment, I realized that in order to know what disability means for each person, we need to get the information from the individual.

Adrienn: I learned a lot through the creation [of ‘Harmonia’]. It opened up a new perspective, and talking about our needs and limitations became very important. It was all about communicating. How people react and communicate with each other defines the quality of the movement and how the group works together.

Alexandra: It is ongoing research. We, as a company, realized we need to create space for observing different necessities. We also became more aware that we, as humans, should share this in order to create a better working space where everybody can express their needs, their limitations, and their feelings. It changed the relation we have to our work – the way we communicate in the group and the way we are transparent with ourselves.

We started appreciating things differently. You start realizing how important it is to have a ramp to get to places. There are physical and social barriers everywhere. If you don’t have these specific needs, you just walk through life and don’t realize it. Awareness is already a first step.

In ‘Harmonia’, you attempt to rearrange our ideas about the body and the systems built around it. How did this vision evolve into choreography?

Adrienn: At the beginning, it was totally open. I only knew what I did not want to do. I wanted to avoid creating heroes, for example by lifting the dancers as though they didn’t have a disability.

I work a lot with improvisation and physicality. It was very important for us to share each other’s preparation, warm-up, movement strategies — how do you connect with your body? Where and how do you use the weight? The aim was to bring dancers together on a horizontal level.

What do you mean by a horizontal level?

Alexandra: The danger is pretending we are all the same, because we are not. Horizontal level means recognizing our differences but being aware of what we have in common. How can we create a movement language where we all have our own approach to movement and create a common language?

Your method is based on guided improvisation in the rehearsal room. How did the training sessions go?

Adrienn: We came prepared with many physical tasks.

Alexandra: It was more like exercises: going into illogical positions with your body, moving in space with them, transforming them, balancing, unbalancing. And we had games.

Adrienn: Like when someone was dancing, we were watching each other. And then we went in and passed the movement to each other. From that, we started to develop further.

In the studio, I was observing a lot and especially how dancers would warm up. For me, it is a very intimate situation. I like to see the body when it is pure, not pretending. In my piece, I often use what I see in reality. I want to see emotions, to see under the skin.

Alexandra: When working with Adrienn, the team sits together at least once a week. We talk about what we saw, what we think, what has been happening. It is an ongoing conversation.

How do the improvisations appear in a structured form on stage?

Adrienn: We created these blocks as a structure, but we wanted to keep them open, fresh and improvised, so we could surprise each other every time. For the third part, everyone brought their own tools and strategies. It was very open at the beginning.

Alexandra: We tried for a very long time to keep it open, but it did not always work. The balance between bodies with a disability and those without was a very important thing throughout the whole production. There was a risk of having an unbalanced order if it was left open. If there were three dancers without a [physical] disability dancing one after the other, the following solo performance would change completely. It could be a mirror to the disbalance in society. So we decided to fix the order.

With your performance, you invite viewers to explore the human body and its meaning in dance and society. You aim to re-adjust the gaze. How did you do that on stage?

Alexandra: The piece has three parts. The first is based on body research. We took our inspiration from everyday preparation. This allows the public to observe this preparation and have time to reflect on their own prejudices, giving us the time to re-adjust the gaze. In the second part, we see how every dancer can experience their flesh, muscles, and bones, no matter what type of body they have.

Adrienn: The last part is a solo appearance. It shows that we all have our own individuality and that we can express ourselves through movement. When we watch each other dance, we draw inspiration from each other’s movements and experiences.

What do you mean by ‘disbalance in society’?

Alexandra: We wanted to bring out our differences. They are there, you can see them, but they were not the main focus between us. By fixing the order of the individual appearances in the third part, we tried to avoid the comparison between the dancers because this is something that we do every day in society.

There were many moments where we were unsure of how we were going to be read as a fully able-bodied team [of directors]. We were aware that we didn’t have all the answers and we knew we had to ask the experts – our dancers living with disabilities. We needed open conversations and no taboos.

The last weeks of creation were very intense. The aim for everyone was to make it to the premiere. There is time pressure, there is structural pressure. All of this is something that artists with disabilities criticize in the system — that there is this ‘achievement’ concept. With the different needs, we had to rethink our way of working. Some dancers have other rhythms, they need more time. We had to avoid falling into these traps of producing.

What would you like the audience to take away from the performance?

Alexandra: It is a process the spectator goes through. In the beginning, people are actually looking at the differences. They can really dive into different bodies, ages, backgrounds. In the second part, the spectator sees the different bodies, but does not focus on them anymore. And the dancers’ movement is very much a struggle that the spectator also goes through. We then reach a peak in the third part, where the audience experiences a celebration of the body.

No matter what type of body we have, there is this joy, this sexiness, this way of sharing, this way of communicating. You feel this liberation, you see how the dancers share and are there for each other. They are individuals, but they inspire each other – and they remain who they are.