NECROMANCY

Time traveling allows us not only to look into the mirror of our past, but to face our contemporary problems. Necromancy is about subversive imagination and alternate realities, realized as an immersive VR-journey through time and space which blends the genre of theatre and 360° film as a hybrid performance.

Fifty years ago, the Hungarian state tried to take control of the art scene. Many artists were banned and forced into hiding, but local neo-avant-garde movements found shelter in a small chapel in Balatonboglár. In the seventies these young people wanted to dream up an alternate reality for themselves through artistic work. In this key meeting place a famous independent theatre group (later Squat Theatre) presented a subversive and liberating performance based on the movie of King Kong with an early queer reference: the main male actor stepped out of the confines of his body and became a beautiful woman. They escaped the perceived reality and played with their gender identities.

For how long is it possible to create a separate universe under a dictatorship? If we must leave our home country as refugees, can we connect to other cultures?

Necromancy summons the ghosts and gives them a voice to tell us about radical freedom. In a 30-minute long mystical séance visitors can make contact with these hiding spirits of different places, not only through listening and seeing, but also touching and smelling. We invite our audience on an immersive journey spanning across continents following the traces of Squat Theatre from Budapest to New York, through missing venues, apartments and archives. Join us in a poetic attempt at remembering together and overcoming the limits of materiality.

Necromancy was an official research project and documentary performance of the Veszprém-Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture programme.