11 3 8 7

In English

White artificial eyes. With robotic manners, three brought-to-life avatars give chills. White and empty, the stage can be a test environment, a futuristic laboratory, or a catwalk where cyborg influencers flaunt, pose, and imitate life. A delirium of alienation, an eerie streaming or a dream that shocks late at night, a faux reality show, or perhaps something even more uncanny - this is 11 3 8 7.

Trevoga Collective draws inspiration for its piece from the contradiction between the lavish fantasies we fabricate online and the increasingly hostile reality around us. The media and social networks promise glamor and salvation. But in fact, it feels like a loss of power over the self, an existence as a node in an endless profit optimisation algorithm or just yet another re-itteration of the same self-replcating advertisement.

Authors and performers Neda Ruzheva, Antonina Pushkareva, and Erikas Erikas Žilaitis turn into humanoid dolls infected with the memetic parasites of virtual existence. Similar to how an AI bot distorts content when prompted, the piece takes virtual imitations of "real" human interactions far into the unknown, which may be the future. Symbols overlap but contradict each other. Meanings come together, only to fall apart. 11 3 8 7 fills the eyes with polished imagery, yet the packaging is hollow. Behind the glossy appearance of its fictional avatars lurks an unsettling atmosphere almost impossible to grasp. Like wandering alone through a deserted shopping mall, it haunts its viewers with the chills of a cold, manufactured absence.

11 3 8 7 was awarded Best of Amsterdam Fringe Festival 2023 and was selected for Aerowaves Twenty24

''It was perfectly sexy, imbued with desire and addiction, teeny shorts and selfies; and perfectly haunting, with death stares and an unexpected spitting out of bloody tongues.''
- Springback Magazine

About Trevoga

Trevoga is an emerging Amsterdam-based dance collective, currently formed by Amsterdam University of Arts alumni Neda Ruzheva (BG, 1999), Antonina Pushkareva (RU, 2000), and Erikas Žilaitis (LT, 1999) and now welcoming a new member Dovile Krutulyte (LT, 1998).

Unified by their experiences of growing up in the nebulous socio-political context of post-Soviet "transition" – between the violently enforced moral imperatives of a ghostly dictatorship and the stupefying hedonism of a newborn consumerist dream – they grow up quite fond of overlaps between repression and seduction. This ambivalence lies at the base of their aesthetic practice, where flashy tropes from popular media and high culture go hand-in-hand with a mundane sense of distress.