Productions

Director Renee Nõmmik
Costume and stage designer Maarja Meeru
Dancers and co-choreographers Tiina Ollesk, Simo Kruusement, Annachiara Gallo, Chiara Fiore, Markus Ian Monak, Amanda Tender, Zhenyan Ding

What happens when the world around us seems to be falling apart, but the heart still seeks closeness, understanding and beauty?

“Along the Alleys, As the Leaves Pile Up” is a poetic dance performance that explores how people try to find each other and stay true to themselves at a time when everyday worries, global anxiety and virtual communication increasingly tear us apart.

The performance is inspired by Sally Rooney’s novel "It’s a Beautiful World, Where You Are": a story of friendship, love and how young adults try to cope in a world that is simultaneously beautiful and painful, attractive and repulsive. The dance performance does not retell the events of the novel, but interprets its core – the longing for closeness and honesty. Personal moments alternate with quick, everyday fragments that resemble the letters and messages of the characters in the novel – attempts to reach out to another person. The choreography explores the fragile boundary between approach and distance, and the silence between these moments: pauses in which both doubt and beauty lie.

The international troupe brings together young and experienced dancers from Estonia and Italy. The production particularly speaks to a generation for whom Rooney's work is personal and familiar – but offers recognition to anyone who has ever felt a longing for closeness. "Along the Alleys, As the Leaves Pile Up" is like a letter to the viewer – written with bodies, movement, light and breath. It is a dance meditation on how to find beauty even when the world seems to have momentarily shifted.

Renee Nõmmik: "This dance performance is inspired on the rhythm of the novel's composition, where narrative chapters alternate with long philosophical e-mails from the characters. The gap between the parts, or White Space - places of pause or transition - creates a change in the perception of time, distance between the characters and places where one can "breathe" and reflect. Choreographically, White Space is a time and place where the unspeakable can arise."

Recommended age: 13+
Supported by: Ministry of Culture, City of Tallinn