The electric Berlin dance show exploring movement, migration and metamorphosis

Sitting on the front row during Puerto Rican choreographer Kiani Del Valle’s live dance show, Las Casas Invisibles (“invisible houses”), a performer comes so close that you can see the sweat glistening on the small of her back. This intense proximity is emblematic of Del Valle’s visceral performance, which took place over the weekend at Berlin’s Funkhaus. With a mesmeric 10-piece troupe of dancers decked out in blooming pinks and ribbed scarlet garments by Asai Takeaway (and styled by Olive Duran), Las Casas Invisibles is an exhilarating  assemblage of movements, each one conveying some dark, complex and innermost human emotion. The masterfulness lies in the familiarity of the gestures—the hugs, the spins, the yawns the grimaces, the stretches, but how they are elongated and twisted, spun up and spit out, uncurling like ruby ribbons, or fleshly innards across the darkened floor.

Almost a year in the making, Las Casas Invisibles is in many ways a uniquely Berlin production. The performance is Del Valle’s—who has been based in the German capital on and off since 2015—first live show with her new dance company, KDV Dance Ensemble, and is, she says, an exploration into themes of migration and metamorphosis. These ideas of transformation and flight do feel particularly relevant in a city as young, creative and diverse as Berlin, where changeover and socio-personal evolution is a constant. It is a feeling that Del Valle identifies with on a personal level: born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she has lived and worked in numerous locations around the world—New York, Montreal, Israel, London, Japan, Russia, and, now, Berlin—over the last 15 years, something that her troupe have experienced too. “This concept of metamorphosis never really stops…I found similarity with the dancers—they are from all over the world, and we all connected with that,” Del Valle tells SLEEK. “I had a flashback of myself in New York City, when I had just moved there from Puerto Rico…I kind of realised why I picked these dancers in the audition. They all share that with me: moving around to do their work.”

Las Casas Invisibles’ themes are echoed in its fluctuant musical framework. The saga is set up, wound and unwound across three musical landscapes, that in turn segment the performance. Beginning with London producer Raven’s whirrs and hums, the atmosphere convulses into a thunderous sonic storm designed by Floating Points before melting away into Berlin-based performer Lotic’s enchanting vocals. In many ways the triptych of musicians was the springboard for how the show—the first dance performance to headline Funkhaus’s iconic Saal 1 to date—came about. Del Valle was initially set to work with Raven and Floating Points on seperate ensemble projects, but after these were delayed, she was compelled to direct her own production. Meanwhile, the decision to have three artists perform was a personal one: “I often work with the number three …I like that number for things that aren’t matching together, but are able to show evolution, a contrast, or how they are different from each other,” explains Del Valle. “I feel honoured and lucky to have worked with these incredible artists in their own right,” she says. 

Out of this evolving sonicscape, a jittering and compulsive narrative bursts forth. The show begins with two dancers sitting back to back in a milky pool of light. They gradually loosen up and spin around each other as the other dancers descend like shadowy spectres from the aisles. The music fuzzes, burring darkly; the troupe twitch in unison, banding together in a scarlet wave, a single magnetic organism. The two dancers swing each other around, erupting in hysterical laughter. According to Del Valle, this first element of the show references her family history. “These are my older sisters and how they used to feel so much from another world to me…I put them on a pedestal and felt really different to them because I was so much younger, so the show begins from this idea.” Out of this deeply personal starting point, the whole kaleidoscopic spectrum of human events and emotion spills outwards (Del Valle says she is inspired by everything from everyday arguments on the U-Bahn to the loss of childhood innocence to the radical futurism of Mark Fisher). “It shows you really quickly through vignettes everything from family to loss, sickness, friendship… saying goodbye, families going away, falling in love,” she confirms.

Within the ceremonial space of the Saal 1—a bewitching chamber not dissimilar from Berghain’s cavernous halls—Las Casas Invisibles could be best described as an electrical storm, dazzling and violent at once, booming and shuddering before tenderly blinking away. Here, bodies trash and writhe, aching and rippling, trying painfully to cope and to be and to live. Through the dancer’s wired scrambles and affectionate clutches, connection and disconnection flows like currents: hands so often stretched, fingers nearly tipping, seeking help and refusal at once. “I am just really inspired by the vulnerability of humans, that’s what moves me,” says Del Valle. “Especially today when everyone is trying to sell themselves…I feel that I want to get to an honest place and that’s what I often hear from people about my work: I make them feel that they are in an intimate situation.”

All photos by Laura Schaeffer. 

CHOREOGRAPHER + DIRECTOR
KIANI DEL VALLE @kianidelvalle of @boxartistmanagement and founder of KDV Dance Ensemble

DANCERS
SEBASTIAN ABARBANELL @sebastian.abarbanell
MARCUS LOUEND @lean_creep
ALVIN COLLANTES @alvincollantesdance
THOMAS ROHE @thomasrohe.dance
ANNALISE VAN EVEN@nana_ave_
SHANNON LEYPOLDT @sley_poldt
RUBEN NSUE@rubenmbese
SOFIA NDABA @sophiandaba
YA – CHIN TSAI@nyonyotsai
MAYA GOMEZ@maya_go

LIGHTING DESIGN
Michael Titze @michael__titze