+ERBA – A Forest in the City Comes to the Eisemann Center in April

Eisemann Center Presents will continue the 2023-2024 Season with Compagnia TPO and their production of +ERBA – A Forest in the City on Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27, 2024, at 11:00 am, 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm each day in the Bank of America Theatre. Designed for children ages 4 and up, +ERBA is an interactive show with two dancers who create together with children an imaginary city. The 'architect' dancer observes the landscape and draws the city with houses and streets. The other dancer loves the earth and insects and draws grass and trees. The two characters move in an empty scene where projections on two large, aligned screens evoke a room of wonder. Here their ideas, imagination and projects are drawn from movement and come to life.

The architect creates houses full of color and light, the other dancer redesigns them by adding grass and trees. Slowly an imaginary city grows by combining their different sensitivities. The newborn city becomes a living environment and new characters and events are added. The children come to color and populate the city. Insects appear, the seasons change, and the city gets bigger, busier, and more complex. Their dream of a green city is coming true. But there is also a factory that grows and grows, scaring away insects, birds, and people and making greenery disappear. Together with the children, the dancers will design a new space where nature will grow and where a 'tree concert' can be expected.

Visual, emotional, tactile, immersive... In TPO, creation coincides with an interactive scenery. Using digital design, all sets become “sensitive environments” where continuous crossfades between art and play can be experienced. Dancers, performers, and the audience share the stage and find a common ground of enjoyment beyond cultural and language barriers. Each artwork is designed to dialogue with players in motion, individual dancers, or children. Images and sounds interface with the moving bodies on stage, transforming live gestures and virtual landscapes into a charming interactive art environment. In TPO productions, the role of performers achieves a special balance; thanks to the interactive effects the dancers on stage use their bodies in movement to “paint” and “play music” but, above all, they invite the audience children to explore the space with an approach to theatre that emphasizes the use of the body and the gaze.

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