Inclusive dance team that unites unconventional performers coming to Hong Kong
Unusual Symptoms’ experimental dance project Harmonia challenges audience biases about the human body
In a world obsessed with aesthetic perfection, Harmonia asks a radical question: what happens to our understanding of beauty when we trade judgment for curiosity?
Uniting a cast of performers including dancers with congenital limb differences, dwarfism and wheelchair needs, the experimental dance project by Unusual Symptoms – a company-in-residence at Germany’s Theatre Bremen – exhibits the vocabulary of unconventional movement.
The project premiered in Germany in 2022 and won best work at the 2023 Rudolf Laban Award in Hungary. Now, it will make its Asian debut in Hong Kong on March 21 and 22.
It joins 10 other programmes in the 2026 edition of No Limits, a festival co-presented by the Hong Kong Arts Festival and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust that pushes the boundaries of inclusive performances.
“We wanted to really dive into the physicality of the body itself – the different types of bodies and the qualities they [embody],” says Alexandra Morales, a production manager of Harmonia and the artistic co-director of Unusual Symptoms.
In Harmonia, the ensemble oscillates between moments of slow, quiet stretches of movement and uncontained bursts of power. Wheelchairs transcend their role as mere pieces of equipment to become extensions of the dancers’ bodies, unlocking a range of movement that traditional dance cannot replicate.