“The 12th Room” from NTOB Ballet Troupe
8, 9 and 10 February – 19:00
arTurbina
Choreography: Manjola Hasani and Esdalin Gorani
Costume Design: Ardi Asallani
Set Design: Renold Sula
Principal role: Eltion Merja
Soloists: Ledia Sulaj, Anxhelo Muçollari, Adela Muçollari, Fatjon Lito, Elda Logo, Luixhino Hala, Lori Bala, Klevi Carkanji, Ledian Agalliaj, Odeta Dishnica, Isida Mollaymeri, Amela Prifti
“The 12th Room” is the absolute premiere of NTOB’s Ballet Troupe, with the choreography of Manjola Hasani and Esdalin Gorani. This is a contemporary work and is an original creation of the two choreographers. A work comprised of difficult choreographic elements and a high intensity of movement. A ballet that has movement at its core, intertwined with exterior scenic elements, lighting and technological elements, that make up the whole work. This special form of constructing the work strips the artist of the heavy weight of costumes and presents them as they are, to speak only with the body language, dressed only with the emotion of the character. This work is an absolute NTOB premiere, with costumes by Ardi Asllani and set design by Renold Sula.
The whole show is built on 15 main characters who are also the soloists of this work. The individual around whom everything: life, stories, entrances and exits to the rooms of life and the standstill, or oblivion lies at the center of it. Each room has its own sensation, tempo and content. 12 events, emotions, sensations, memories, desires or defeats are played in the 12 rooms. In these 12 rooms it is lived to leave a trail of memory; we do not know if tomorrow they will be attributed to us when we no longer exist.
The premiere of “The 12th Room” will be held on 8, 9 and 10 February – 7pm at arTurbina.
SYNOPSIS
An ancient theory tells us that “Life consists of 12 rooms. At these 12 rooms we will leave something from ourselves that will be remembered by others. 12 are the rooms that will make us be remembered after we get past the last one! No one remembers the first room, because when we are born we cannot see, but we see clearly when we go to the last room, the 12th room.” So we go back and start all over again. Room means to stop, but also to wait. It is an important element that we never pay attention to. We say it and that’s it. We created them; built them when we found a place to stay, and even gave them names, numbers or poetic meanings like: the waiting room, the tea room, the dream room, the single-view room or room 12.
The rooms are endless, but we don’t think it through. They are so common in our lives that we call them wasteful, so we address them by calling them “Rooms.” The room where we wait is called the waiting room. The ones where we confine people are called cells, as if they no longer existed, as if they were invisible. Then there are rooms with a character such as: the creativity room, the dream room, the memory room, the blind room, and the abandoned rooms which instill fear. There are rooms that make you think or isolate yourself.
Each room has its own sound, its own smell, and the light that influences us and affects our memory. On this journey we will open a door, which will either make us go inside or take us out, because rooms are PERMEATED.
You go in and out a room. The rooms are empty and full, but it’s us who fill or empty them. The rooms change every second that passes, the light changes, the persons living in them; they absorb our energy. It can happen during our lives for us to be forced to describe imaginary rooms. There are moments in our lives in which we enter into rooms we do not care about. These are the kind of rooms where we feel trapped for a long time. Rooms that kill the light and turn dark, too small to hold and endure us, but at the same time, they return large and impossible to traverse.
TIME DOES NOT EXIST; IT STAYS OUT OF THIS ROOM. It’s a room where we have no body and no music, which is sometimes in a hospital or at home, but it’s actually the same room in reality. It is so dark that our feelings try the impossible to get into it. THIS ROOM STAYS INSIDE OF US EVEN WHEN WE HAVE LEFT IT. It makes us do everything to avoid getting into any of them, yet they have given us important things, made us curious and opened our eyes to the future. The room remains the room in which we can go in and out, receive or give something, but it is always the room in which something of us is born and dies.