two people in a room, 2022

by Adrian Thoemmes Pietari and Mariona Vinyes Ràfols

“two people in a room, 2022” is a duet that portrays two individuals and their story together. Positioned in one space they explore an awkward way of being in close contact, sharing intimacy yet so distant. What are they for each other: friends, siblings, lovers? It is as if they no longer see each other. Something is lost, broken. What has happened to them, and will they find each other back?During the duet, the story between them will start unfolding by itself: movement, partnering, dialogues, and gestures. Two people, their shared-story and the broken parts of it.

The inspiration for this piece comes from the intimate relationships of characters from movies by Aki Kaurismäki and Wong Kar- Wai, and the everyday stories of relationships told and experienced by strangers and closed ones, like in the book by Haruki Murakami: “Men without Women”. Furthermore, it is inspired from photographs of the Magnum Photo Collective, which shows us humans in our daily life. The makers aim to tell what is beyond words through nuances of movement and gestures.

We believe that our lives are a constant exchange of interactions with others: we live for the shared experience of it. With this piece we want to emphasise human relationships and their importance in our existence. We are co-dependent from each other and we evolve together through communication, dissonance and agreeing to disagree.

performers and makers Mariona Vinyes Ràfols and Adrian Thoemmes Pietari

composer Jeremy Delorme

supported by Janivo Stichting, Theater aan de Schie, Dans in Ontwikkeling and Magnezy Dance Productions

A man and a woman are posed in a cluttered garage, with the man sitting on a chair with one knee up and leaning over the woman, who is sitting on the chair with her arms crossed, looking distressed.
A man and woman in a kitchen with white cabinets and tiled backsplash, the man is mid-air in a crouched position reaching toward the woman, who is crouched on the floor looking up at him with a surprised expression.
A man in a black shirt and white pants holds a woman in a maroon top and beige pants upside down in a dance pose on a dark stage.
“From abstraction to the domestic: Two People in a Room (2022), performed by Mariona Vinyes Ràfols and Filippo Gualandris, drifts in like a half-remembered morning. Everyday tasks leak into dance; speech flickers on and off; intimacy sits close yet oddly far. The duet traces a familiar arc—harmony to static, tug-of-war to fracture, then the tentative choreography of repair.

Partnering is the motor: near-miss passes, weight shared and snatched back, small gestures (braiding the hair, a forehead lean) that charge the air more than any big lift. Hints of Kaurismäki’s deadpan and Wong Kar-wai’s humid longing surface without turning into pastiche. Some loops linger a touch too long, but the performers’ understated alertness keeps the line taut. Built from the ordinary, it asks what remains when we stop narrating love and simply move around it.
”
— By WJQuinn, the Quinntessential Review

Performance dates

2025

7th-8th November at Dance Innovations, Edinburgh (UK)

2023

11th March at Stukafest Rotterdam (NL)

2022

1st November at Theater aan de Schie (NL)