In Dictatorship of love Sandra Kramerová questions how ideals can become oppressive. How can commitment, effort and love turn into a dictatorship? Sandra shares her physical research of Eastern European propaganda in combination with personal stories of women from the local community. Embodied power radiates from experiences of collective pride, shame and injustice. 

Can movements speak louder than words and what happens if we move as one? How can you, as an individual body, relate to a collective movement? 

Fascinated by this tension of surrendering to a greater whole and preserving individual freedom, we follow a group of female dancers in their search for power in a crowd. We see women empowered and surrendered, torn between propaganda and protest, freedom and oppression, love and survival. The choreography highlights political intensity of the female body in relationship to the beauty and darkness of mass choreographies.

Choreography - Sandra Kramerová Dancers - Inbal Abir, Candela Murillo, Mayke van Veldhuizen Music - Jon Lloyd Costume design - Anouk van der Zee Lighting design - Boaz van den Ban Production manager - Alejandra Zabala Artistic coaching - Pavel Zuštiak, Ioana Tudor, Igor Vrebac

Sandra is a Slovak born dancer and choreographer from Amsterdam currently supported by the Performing Arts Fund within the New Makers Scheme in collaboration with Theater De Generator in Leiden. After completing her MFA in Dance at Sarah Lawrence College (New York, 2016), Sandra delved into her cultural background for inspiration. Her work is physical and confrontational and uses different disciplines and media to express itself. Body as a weapon was praised by Het Parool as one of the best performances of the year 2020. Her most recent performance MAJKA (2021) - questioning Eastern European archetypes of womanhood - was positively received by the public and press (Theaterkrant, Volkskrant and Parool).