–or the wound of the butterfly …
wounds speak in the waking and dreaming hours. the piece pursues a fantastic unfolding between dream and trauma. zones of the formless, the fragmentary, where the suppressed and disappeared from consciousness is collected and pored over. the familiar slips from our grasp and structures that seemed secure just a moment ago begin to waver and break apart – causing reality itself to take on dream-like and painful traits. all that is absurd becomes probable. like sleepwalkers, the performers are accompanied on stage by video projections (cyan), which together lead the dance into a state of fragility. »wound« explores human vulnerability and its pain.

»›wound‹ is reminiscent of strindberg’s ›a dream play‹ … a unique and intense piece.« (magasinet terpsichore, dänemark, maria hammer, 2009) 

a cie. toula limnaios production in co-production with the künstlerhaus mousonturm frankfurt/main, the musikteater baltoppen and the halle tanzbühne berlin. supported by the cultural department of the city of berlin and the npn with funding of the federal cultural foundation.
tours: kopenhagen, frankfurt/m., nürnberg, stuttgart, krefeld, bremen, monterrey (mexico)

premiere 2009 dance/creation: mercedes appugliese, fleur conlon, kayoko minami, clebio oliveira, ute pliestermann, hironori sugata

photos: dieter hartwig, cyan


toula limnaios


ralf r. ollertz


daniel afonso, leonardo d’aquino, katja scholz, hironori sugata, karolina wyrwal, inhee yu


jan langebartels


antonia limnaios, toula limnaios

choreographic assistance

ute pliestermann

public relation

silke wiethe




»performed by the radical german-based dance company cie.toula limnaios, wound, is an intense and unsettling but unforgettable experience, which draws upon fragments of dreams, memories and nightmares. our man in berlin, mark fernyhough reports. heike schneider-matzigkeit photographs
founded in back in the vintage year of 1996 by athens born dancer/ choreographer toula limnaios (known as »the philosopher of dance«) and composer ralf r. ollertz, contemporary dance company cie.toula limnaios is now viewed as a tour de force on the higher-brow spectrum of the berlin arts scene.
adopting a former police gym just behind prenzlauer berg’s current law enforcement establishment as their atmospheric rehearsal and performance base, there is nothing untoward or illegal occurring here, just physical art experiments of the highest order. and tonight is the dress rehearsal of a new work entitled simply, wound, which eloquently integrates video, light, dance and performance-art to explore the age-old themes of dreams, pain and human fragility.
despite the company’s heart-on-sleeve conviction and a stirring intensity which underlines the whole piece, not once do they uncouthly bludgeon their emotions or thematic intentions on the audience. rather, the performance is as gentle as it is powerful. ute pliestermann’s facial expressions alone speak louder than a jab to heart. there is noticeably a kinship and chemistry between the on-stage dancers and refreshingly, never does it seem that any single individual is battling for the spotlight. instead they dance as as a cohesive whole.
cie.toula limnaios display both a freshness and a cutting edge rawness often missing in established dance venues, yet  they do not lack anything in the way of talent, discipline or production values. wound is sophisticated, inventive and moving. considering cie.toula limnaio’s neighbors, it’d be a crime to overlook them.« (www.nudemagazine.co.uk, 2009)

»she is undoubtedly one of the operators of a work that continuously unfolds under her hands and meticulously transforms. what remains constant with her could be described as a complex equation: a diffuse, but solid, always visually stunning overlap of dance and action play, surreal and psychodrama, sacredness and myth, silence and sound, forces and actors, repression and symbols, recurrence and transgression.« (frankfurter allgemeine zeitung)

»… slowly and with great concentration, associative worlds of images with a disturbing effect and surprisingly gentle moments unfold, which touch, follow, and overlap each other, and in the repetition enable a magical concentration in the audience, which cannot escape the suction of movement, music, image and film sequences, light and costume. a one-hour ´dream play´ with people in shock. violence lurks beneath the surface, the power of destruction simmers. the uncanny is revealed in the details. … the couple dances and group actions establish the vulnerability of the human creature on the scene. the dramaturgically contrapuntal or deepening placed b-w film sequences (video: cyan) increase the visual power and direct the viewer’s gaze into new abysses: … a contemplative dance evening of disturbing visual power and compelling intensity. « (neues deutschland/www.tanznetz.de)

»›wound ‹- a rare and wonderful dis-utopia: the piece was a fascinating reunion with six very different and talented dancers, each of whom has its own charisma on the stage. the ensemble grows together completely, among other things because of the admirable achievement, partly because there is an overwhelming sense of joy over the experience of this great art. the piece has a tendency to be bizarre. ›Wound‹ made just as big an impression on baltoppen as it did on the berlin audience, where dr. schmidt-feister even wrote that it would be a crime to miss this performance. the dancers represent an endless nightmare – maybe our reality – that unfolds before our eyes. ›wound‹ shows disturbing images. couple dances and group interactions show emotionally disturbed people and are reminiscent of strindberg’s ›a dream play‹. moments of human vulnerability and longing are held and understood. the dream lives on, but the nightmare is not over yet, the wounds have not yet healed and destruction lurks just below the surface. ›Wound‹ is the third co-production with baltoppen and a unique and intensive work.
a rare, wonderful dis-utopia. and what is a real dis-utopia? – a frightening ghost, the opposite of the utopia of an ideal society. in dis-utopias a society with frightening elements emerges, which often protrude into the future … « (magasinet terpsichore, maria hammer, 2010)

»after the skin layers /// toula limnaios has been represented as one of the best german dance theater choreographers since 1997 and is considered to be one of the most interesting representatives of the dance of poetry. several dozen pieces with dance, theater, music and video plunged feelings into the world, the intersection of fiction and reality, on the search for inner and outer identity. in ›wound‹ you go into hidden caves that harbor injuries and discomforts. the performance is a psychological observation, or even a kind of psychological attempt, the liberation of the back – unpleasant experiences with a human vulnerability and physical and mental wounds connected – with mysterious dreams and nightmares. six dancers … form ›distorted‹ duets, group combinations or the exercise of restless solos, here reveal their bare true feelings, hidden behind masks, they simply create a real world … between emotions and brutal reality. … the game is really worth thinking about the extensive themes, scenes and pictures widen the eyes of the visitors. a physical and mental skin changes suggestively increases both the composer ralf r. ollertz (music) and the artists of the group cyan (video).« (www.menufaktura.lt, litauen, ingrid gerbutaviciute, 2009)

»toula limnaios is a master of finding original movement. she turns and turns, shakes or stirs, and a strange, attractive taste is created. a dancer becomes the hermaphrodite of horse and bird (or perhaps minotaur), a dancer steps around on him in another scene, first in pumps, then barefoot. small, intricate movements add up again and again between more extensive ensembles. or three of the six dancers combine to form a sculpture that never finds a stand-point. … at every moment there is something exciting to see, movements trigger other movements and the viewer’s thoughts. « (frankfurter rundschau, sylvia staude, 2009)