The piece Forgot to Love - performed by one of Russia’s leading contemporary dance companies, the Provincial Dance Theatre Yekaterinburg - features people in brief encounters that do not develop into more than quick meetings, a vision of socially disable humans interacting with each other in the post-Facebook era.

 

It is set on an open stage, stripped down of any draperies, so its architecture and its technical facilities remain visible. From three sides, woollen blankets are hung and, in the right light, the blankets look like hanging meat in a slaughterhouse.

 

The choreography consists of poetic images, which build and break, touch and then confront, occasionally rough and vulgar, sometimes tribal or animalistic, sensual even sexual, and highly athletic. There is a constant hunt for contact, to meet, to link, and to belong to a bigger network of individuals but each encounter remains deficient of sincereness and emotional intelligence. The piece addresses our primal need for love and social acknowledgement.