This piece – two bodies captured in 1000 metres of black rope – unfolded from a previous performance called KNOT BODY. The work navigates the transitional space that trespasses the object/subject divide through an ongoing metamorphose of a massive black thread: a pile of it becomes a lasso, a whip, a snake, and then a huge knot, a multidimensional pattern, an accidental spatial ornament, a labyrinth, a sprawling mass entwining, hiding, revealing, becoming the bodies that it connects and divides.

In the process, spaces between conventional binaries of gender (male/female) and substance (presence/absence) are revealed and inhabited. The blackness of the rope in the obscurity of the space contrasted with the skin of the naked bodies invokes an animistic ritual, one which seems to imbue a utilitarian object with kinetic energy, awakening its own inner life. THISENTANGLEMENT is an independent continuation of QUARTO’s performances Knot Body, Beauty of Accident and Durational Rope. Each part in the ROPE-series deals with the 1000 metre-long rope in distinct ways. Beauty of Accident, the first part of the series, explored the rope’s flux and continuous movement; it unfolded into a durational piece (Durational Rope) and a video piece (ROPE#1). In the second part, KNOT BODY, the stage performance deals with the rope as a knot/mass/body and has also developed into a video piece (ROPE#2), leading us to the current piece THISENTANGLEMENT.

Choreography, concept and performance: QUARTO (Anna af Sillén de Mesquita and Leandro Zappala). Dramaturg: Igor Dobricic. Curator: Camilla Carlberg, Moderna Museet. Distribution: Koen Vanhove and Julia Asperska from Key Performance. Co-produced by Moderna Museet and MDT. Supported by: The Swedish Arts Council, Stockholm’s Culture Committee, The Stockholm County Council and The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.