

THE ACTING BODY
"The Acting Body" is part of an ongoing research project rooted in character creation through the body, using movement and theatrical tools to develop a storytelling physicality. The investigation began with The Villager in November 2018, which served as the initiation of the entire process. From the beginning, the focus has been on how the body can become a multilayered instrument—capable of holding various physical qualities, emotional textures, and internal contradictions. Through isolation work and theatrical layering, new fictional characters began to emerge and evolve over time.
This ongoing process gave rise to two short performance works: The Visitor and The Village. Both pieces reflect different stages in the development of these characters and the growing complexity of the embodied storytelling language. The Village, in particular, marks a turning point in the research and serves as the basis for a planned full-length dance theatre piece, where individual narratives intertwine within a shared world shaped by group dynamics, memory, and transformation.
THE VILLAGER
The village is a research project that explores character creation through the approach of movement and theatre. In november 2018 I started a first research on the life in villages, where the approach was purely theatrical. In this phase, two fictional characters—Olga and Maria—were created as extensions of the my own identity, serving as portals into personal memory, imagination, and physical transformation.
THE VISITOR
The Visitor is a character-based solo inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Absurd and bizarre in tone, the piece explores the shifting boundary between perpetrator and victim, touching on the subject of unprocessed trauma. It marked the emergence of the character known as "the old white man"—a surreal, ambiguous figure embodying authority, fragility, and internal conflict. The short piece was premiered on the 12th of October 2019 at the festival Incidanse in Fribourg.
The village
"The Village" is a work-in-progress, non-linear storytelling dance theatre piece that explores the phenomenon of group structures and their dynamics.
Inspired by the haunting atmosphere of a ghost village—where spaces are imbued with the lingering presence of past lives—the piece seeks to intertwine personal memories with historical narratives, creating a dialogue between the individual and the collective past. Drawing inspiration from Adrian Ghenie's paintings, which often evoke a dreamlike quality with blurred boundaries between reality and imagination, the work aims to capture the tension between the visible and the hidden, the remembered and the forgotten.
Credits:
Concept: Zoe Gyssler
Choreography: Zoe Gyssler in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: NIMBLE Project: Aurora Bonetti, Sonja Christl, Elleisse Crouch, Wassilissa Gutzwiller, Alice Ortona Coles, Alexandra Paal, Maureen Zollinger.
Sounddesign: Jan Beyer
Stage & Costume: Zoe Gyssler and Dancers
Rehearsel Direction: Marta Rak
Production: Iwanson International School for Contemporary Dance
Teaser: Filmed by Verena, edited by Zoe Gyssler
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Premiere:
14.3. 2020 Kultur Ingoldstadt
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Further performances:
4. 4. 2020 Zagreb
18. / 19. 4. 2020 Schwere Reiter, München
26. 4. 2020 Firenze