Ivo Dimchev sings, dances, paints and talks to the audience

During Spring Utrecht, founded in the 1980s as a spring dance, in addition to the latest growth in the field of dance and performance, old acquaintances can also be returned to time. With Brazilian Marcelo Evelin (62) for example, or Beppie Blankert (75). Ivo Dimchev, who taps almost 50, closes the festival.

In 2009, the Dutch public was introduced to this Bulgarian for the first time and since then a new performance has followed almost every year, mostly soloperformances in which singing, text, interaction with the public (more and more) and dance (less and less) come together. Live-painting has been added to the repertoire, plus the auction of his paintings. The title of this performance says it all, it is’Music, Exhibition, Text and Choreographyor Metch.

Those who have been following him for a long time recognize many elements and anecdotes. Those about the Danish festival director, for example, whom he seduced by oral sex into a booking. In Metch He sucks for illustration, with some gags, on the leg of a music standard. It is typical Dimchev: absurd, exalted and a little pornographic, somewhat tragic but also light and funny.

I believe that art is a conversation, and then I want my conversation partner to be active for a moment

Recycling is a characteristic of the work, he acknowledges. « I like to recycle things. Ten, fifteen years ago there was a whole Artsy audience in the hall, people from the dance and art world. Later, when I started song programs »- Dimchev has a melodious falset voice- « came other people, audience who doesn’t go to theater. The Weird Stuff. I find it interesting to broaden their idea about art. Another reason is that I find some topics important enough to repeat – war, children in war situations.  » In the show, the sex scene that he paints with a few brush strokes transforms into the suffering in Gaza.

Constantly in conversation

In his performances, that audience has become increasingly important. He involves the spectators, lets them sing, dance (he himself dances « To Impress the Press”, He says in the show), commenting via his Facebook account. In Metch he is constantly in conversation with the audience. That is; The audience reads, Willig and Laughy, texts and questions that are projected on the back wall. « I believe that art is a conversation, and then I want my conversation partner to be active for a moment. The distance I have to the audience differs per show. I once started to give the audience text in New York because the actors found it too shocking and sexual. At the last moment, to save the show, I asked the visitors to understand, what the way I discover that it was a good way to discover that the way I discover that it is a good way to discover that it is a good way to do that, that it is a good way. the distance smaller. ”

Some, he says, reads crazy questions without any problem as « Dirty Cock of Dirty Dishes?Or «  »Can you fuck that bitch and be friends again?« Others are ambivalent. When Dimchev hand out microphones, he encourages speakers to give overly negative or positive comments on the show and the painting he makes. » To let them experience the freedom you have in the theater. « 

Pornographic

With his irresistible charm and sometimes endearing vulnerability, he excites the audience so effortlessly around his finger, no matter how crazy and pornographic-explicit his performances are sometimes. He once planted a French flag in the secret opening of his co-performer, and in P Project or Pussy Catalog He got a couple from the audience so crazy to simulate a free party naked on stage. For money because, according to Dimchev, « if the performative body is art, then it also has a value. »

In a further past, he illustrated that by tapping blood to himself, lovingly singing to alleviate the penetrating image. He sold life juice by auction. « My work is often about value, in a philosophical or financial sentence. In the visual arts it is normal to talk about money, on stage it is a kind of sacrilege. I am not committed to talking about it, I want to be honest. A performance is also a transaction. »

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