What moves mankind? RELIQUIEM is an intimate ritual that invites you to reflect on human movement. With the help of headphones and careful directions, you get to know extraordinary people and their personal movements. Experience Isa’s walking feet, Wim’s straight-up sitting and Bernardie’s heel-gymnastics. You get to know their moving motivations in the most direct way possible: through your own body. What moves you?  

In the multi-year art project Motus Mori, Katja Heitmann collects and preserves human movement. Since 2019, more than 2,000 people have already donated their personal movement to this embodied archive, an ever-growing foundation from which the choreographer creates new artworks.

With RELIQUIEM, Katja Heitmann takes her archive research to the next level; creating a collective shared movement heritage to secure it for the future. The archive will be transferred to ‘everyone’. After all: doesn’t every human being want to keep moving, for eternity?

Motus Mori RELIQUIEM has premiered in May 2023 at SPRING Performing Arts Festival Utrecht and Cadance Den Haag.

Theaterkrant: “Heitmann has a mission! Undeniably. In Motus Mori she returns the body to a society that is in danger of losing sight of its value. Art cannot be more urgent. But besides being urgent, Reliquiem is also very moving. After all, the body is transitory and confronts us with finiteness.”

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Credits

Concept, artistic direction, libretto: Katja Heitmann
Concept, music, dramaturgy: Sander van der Schaaf
Production: Stichting This is not a show
Interviews, editing: Eva Geia Huisman, Josefine Patzelt, Wies Berkhout, Moene Roovers, Ornella Prieto, Eleni Ploumi, Karolien Wauters
Artistic advice: Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink, Marijn Meijles, Jan Ruts
Scenography: Taciser Sevinc [TACISER.S ART AND DESIGN]
Realisation decor: Edwin Daemen
Production-managers: Corné van de Schoor, Julia Drittij
Photography: Hanneke Wetzer
International development: Fanny Martin | Art of festivals
Supported by: Fonds Podiumkunsten, Gemeente Tilburg, Provincie Noord Brabant
Co-production partners: SPRING, Korzo, DecemberDance, tanzhausNRW