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Founded in 2002, The Symptoms are among the most important independent dance and theatre companies in Hungary. Their pieces often raise awareness about burning social issues. Lena Megyeri met up with artistic director Réka Szabó and founder member Dániel Szász to reflect on the idea of sustainability – particularly in relation to their street performance You trash! – Big cleaning in the big outdoors, first performed in 2008 and revived in 2017. Filled with humour and melancholy, it drew attention not only to the ongoing global crisis of waste, but also to the trashed lives of people no longer needed by society.

From its inception, the company has stressed the importance of social involvement, regularly featuring in their repertoire street performance, structured improvisation, interactive fairy-tale plays for kids, as well as an Initiation program for high school students.

Until the moment we are born, we are never alone, and the desire for this ultimate bond may be lingering in our cells for the rest of our lives. Known as Hungary’s most likeable contemporary dance company, The Symptoms has managed to create a shared experience of what is deeply personal and individual – by means of articulated and silent confessions and through the primordial language of movement.

The holocaust, most famously lamented in literature and film, has also been explored in dance. From direct responses in modern dance (Anna Sokolow’s ‘Dreams’) to reflections on its impact on the present (Rami Be’er for KCDC’s ‘Aide Memoire’), no dance company has yet incorporated an Auschwitz survivor in its works. This was the brave move of dance duo The Symptoms, who presented their piece ‘Sea Lavander’ as part of the Hungarian Contemporary Dance Festival in Berlin. With their heartwarming duet, dancer Emese Cuhorka and 90-year-old Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor Éva Fahidi gave a deeply personal account of the historic destruction and the reality of the life that followed.

“You must learn how to live with your traumas. You don’t need to let them drive you mad, like many do,” Eva Fahidi said in a clip from the upcoming documentary “Crying Will Get You Nowhere.” “I cannot afford to let them make me unhappy, because they are beyond my control. And I do want to be happy, you see.” She’s 90 now and an Auschwitz survivor. But when she’s dancing, Fahidi is 18 again, as she replays the carefree days in Hungary before the horror. Then her youthful motions slow, the lights dim and a black-clad figure enters the stage.

BERLIN - Eva Fahidi, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor, commemorates the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with a dance performance about her years in the concentration camp. Fahidi performed the dance, "Sea Lavender or the euphoria of being," with Emese Cuhorka, who plays her younger self in the piece. "You can express yourself much better and more precisely with gestures and especially with dance than verbally," said Fahidi, who performed the piece ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. Fahidi's parents and sister died in the Holocaust. After the liberation Fahidi returned to Hungary and later joined the Budapest dance group "The Symptoms," which helped her tell her story through dance.