CRUELBEHAVIOR Projects THE DUST OF MY CONCRETE CHILD Switzerland

Lino Eckenstein and Eden Manga-Nkoy’s THE DUST OF MY CONCRETE CHILD is a video catalogue of seven portraits exploring intimacy and violence as fragile, physical states. Across a dystopic yet poetic landscape, seven dancers move through sensations of discomfort, loneliness, vulnerability, desire and belonging.

For Dance Umbrella Festival’s Digital Pass, three portraits from the series are presented: Viciousness and Vulnerability, Emptiness and Void, and Risk and Balance. Each film stands alone while contributing to a connected universe, where shifting environments and physical states reveal different facets of the human experience.

In Viciousness and Vulnerability, the search for belonging and rest is unsettled by the risks of exposing oneself to intimacy. Emptiness and Void turns inwards, capturing the disorientation of isolation and the gradual loss of connection with the body. In Risk and Balance, fragile bodies become curious and instinctive, testing their limits between control and surrender.

Blending movement, image and sound, Eckenstein and Manga-Nkoy create a sensorial world where intimacy can become unsettling, vulnerability can transform into curiosity, and the body becomes a site of both memory and discovery.

Curated by Omar Rajeh as part of Spaces of Encounter