Styx 2.0

2017 

 Ziggurat Project / Pro Progressione coproduction - as part of „Spotter Trip“
Imagine standing on the shore of an unknown river. Standing for hours, waiting endlessly.
Waiting for an unknown person. You give your life in his hands. You trust him, for no reason. 
Just because you have no other chance to get from that shore alive. 

Human trafficking is one of the biggest businesses of our time. People are looking for refuge, leaving their homes behind, giving everything they own to those, who are willing to get them out of the war zones. Most of them never succeed. They get swallowed by the Styx 2.0, which was created by the world we are living in. Our aim as artists, is to focus on the human side of these abandoned souls. We take our audience to an interactive journey in a minivan which crosses the river. The audience members are picked up by our human traffickers. All their belongings are taken and will be handed back once reaching the other side. These traffickers, who do not provide any information to the participating audience members, lead them to our van, which is already half filled by other refugees (crew of dancers and actors from our company).

The human traffickers close the van, and the journey starts. It is a quiet journey. With tiny interactions between the refugees. A space filled with uncertainty. A very intimate situation. We lose track of time. As the time passes, our refugees get closer and closer to each other. What we are looking for is humanity. What we try to achieve, is to show this feeling of vulnerability with the help of human interactions and empathy. No expectations. No judgement. The performance aims to create a deep state of meditation, a safe space for the imagination where you can get closer to the only precious thing, life.

"Ziggurat Project, founded in 2013 in Budapest, is a representative of site-specific art. At "Spotter Trip" festival they ventured to a really disquieting area with their "Styx 2.0" production. In the back of the minibus it's not just a physical experience of the abstract horror of crossing the Mediterranean Sea but this experience overpowers me to such an extent that real fears, real stress and tears break up from me.

Later, the participants explain to me that the true choreography of events is always adapted to the reaction of each viewer. Their director, Fanni Lakos controls the game, sometimes leaves out some elements or goes even deeper into the story. This extraordinary attention in the game with viewers is the most important creation method of the Die Fabrikanten team in Live Art productions."
(Theresa Luise Gindlstrasser: Der One-to-One Grenzgang, Die Referentin, p. 16-18)

Keywords:  Interactivity, immersion, physical theatre, multi-channel sound

Artistic concept, direction : Fanni Lakos

Performers involved from Ziggurat Project :
Fanni Lakos, Máté Czakó, Ádám Bot, Flóra Eszter Sarlós

23-24th of September 2017 Spotter Trip (organized by Die Fabrikanten)

4th of April 2018 Happening Now (Bakelit Multi Art Center - Budapest)

Supporters: Die Fabrikanten, Pro Progressione