Decameron 2.0 is a piece for three musicians, two dancers and technology, a meditation on quarantine, the connection and the relationship between analog and digital. Ten characters, five living and five digital, share their experiences from quarantine and transform isolation into connection. Their stories range from mythical to contemporary: tales of entrapment and the need for company; of warriors and magic; of battling one’s demons; stories of restlessness and quests for things lost; a search for meaning and loosing oneself to an illusion; of coping with despair and the challenges of love; finally, of renouncing perfection in favour of being human. While the characters’ main idea is to pass the time, a deeper need also arises: to listen and be heard, to give and receive; to share pain and feel understood. Inspired by the Boccacio‘s timeless tales quarantine, DECAMERON 2.0 shows the power of stories and our need for connection as well as the phenomenon of online life. Why do we feel the urge to share our inner life with one another? In a time when connection is only possible online, do our digital personalities detach from us with an identity, a life of their own? Where can we find comfort in a time of isolation? The piece plays with these questions and finally shows how we all, like Scheherezade, can save our lives with stories.

Nika Bauman (flute, music, direction), Ana Marković (piano), Marko Ferlan (guitar, music), Anna Bárbara Bonatto (dance), Rino Indiono (dance, narration), Stuart MacLean (video), Nikola Stojković (video)

Works by: Leo Brouwer, Claude Debussy, George Crumb, Anton Prettler, Miroslav Tadić, Robert Schumann, Astor Piazzolla, Marko Ferlan, Nika Bauman