For the company, “the impossible is necessary because, as we’re hurtling toward hothouse Earth, nothing is more urgent than the encounter of a myriad of impossibilities.” 

Impossible Dances by BADco is a performative artwork that explores new ways of practising the impossible. The impossible emerges from the process of translating sound recording to movement, movement to choreography and poetry to performance. Impossible Dances draws on the documentation and scores of the “Impossible Dances”-sequence from the performance group Goat Island’s piece The Sea & Poison and John Cage’s notes to his compositions Freeman Etudes: 

“These [compositions] are intentionally as difficult as I can make them, because I think we’re now surrounded by very serious problems in the society, and we tend to think that the situation is hopeless and that it’s just impossible to do something that will make everything turn out properly. So I think that this music, which is almost impossible, gives an instance of the practicality of the impossible.” 
-John Cage 

Impossible Dances is one of nine performances commissioned by the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) as part of the exhibition goat island archive – we have discovered the performance by making it.  

The project was supported by Zagreb City Council for Culture and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.

Premiere: May 24th 2019, Chicago Cultural Center, USA