Still: Cycle - Amit Palgi & Matunda Groenendijk

Amsterdam-based Israeli-Austrian choreographer and dancer Amit Palgi and Dutch 3D artist Matunda Groenendijk are presenting their new VR work, Cycle, as a world premiere in the XR Experience Competition at SXSW in Austin, Texas, this month.

The duo first met at the Cinedans Fest, which celebrates dance movies. Palgi was presenting Shame, one of his 360° dance films. He was also an advisor at the VR Lab. Groenendijk was there, offering her expertise from a VR and 3D design perspective. 

“We got to know each other and it was a few months after that I had a vision for a VR project,” Palgi recalls. “We started to talk and we got excited.”

Groenendijk is a graduate from the St. Joost School of Art & Design and has developed an expertise in creating immersive digital environments. She is known for her work with the Breda collective Studio APVIS.

The two artists quickly realised how well they complemented each other. Palgi has the dance experience, while Groenendijk is a highly-rated XR artist - and both are very open to each other’s visions. 

There are three key words/entry points within the VR: “endlessly,” “we repeat” and “alone.” Viewers in their headsets can create a mini-poem by ordering them in their own way. They will all see the same scenes but in a different order which radically alters the experience. The piece, which uses animation and music as well as dance, is billed as “a philosophical experience…uncovering life’s hidden patterns.”

“It’s this idea of trying to look at life in different perspectives - the repetitiveness that life has, but also this sense of wonder at a very cosmic level,” Palgi explains. “You see how frustrating and dark it can be, repeating a task endlessly - but also how beautiful and charming it can be as well.”

Palgi and Groenendijk developed the project at the Future Storytelling Lab in Arnhem. Here, they began to experiment with motion capture. 

The small army of lean, sinewy, skeletal characters viewers watch in Cycle are all performed by Palgi himself. He choreographed the dances and sent the imagery to Groenendijk who then oversaw the design. 

Viewers end up in a sparse room with a bed, a small shower, a table and a desk. 

“It was very much a collaboration. It started from my initiative and research but then we developed the idea together and came up with the idea of the three scenes…we made a lot of decisions together about the interactivity and how we built it.”

A work in progress version was shown at International Film Festival Rotterdam in January, where Palgi talked to SEE NL. This gave the duo the chance to test the piece, do some “fine tuning” and to determine what might need to be changed in advance of the SSXW launch. 

At IFFR, one viewer was in tears at the end of Cycle, telling the artists that she had had an “intense and helpless” experience. (She chose 'endlessly’ as her port of entry). Others, though, have talked of having a “cosmic, beautiful experience.”

The artists hope that Cycle will be enjoyed both by the dance and the VR community. “I see a lot of potential in this collaboration in both worlds,” says Palgi, who describes himself as having a foot in each. He riffs on the “Buddhist” and “existential” undertones to the piece - and to the idea that:

“you don’t experience the world, you experience your own mind - when the world seems terrible, it means that your mind is in a very bad state. When the world seems beautiful and full of love, it means you are in this state!”

Cycle is a 15-minute experience. Of course, it took far longer than that to create. “It was actually a two-year trajectory since we started the research and then [began] applying for money. We had one year of production.”

Both artists were also working on other projects in this period - but they are very open to collaborating again. “I do feel our vision is very similar and we enhance each other’s work very well,” Palgi concludes of his highly artistic partnership with Groenendijk.

Find out more about SXSW here.