Humble Room ADO
On stage are a man and a woman. She is bare-breasted. Attracted by what it looks like, with overwhelming passion they kiss, they hug, they cling on each other - at times they seem to wrestle. When “Mimoda” was staged for the first time two years ago, it hit Azerbaijan’s traditional theatre scene like a rock. Even in the capital of Baku, performing half-naked is a taboo, which had never been challenged before.
Pushing the boundaries and calling for a revolution in the arts in the South Caucasus was the clear goal that actor and theatre director Elmin Badalov had in mind, when in 2013, he pulled a few brave artists together and founded the ODA Theatre. Since then the group - renamed ADO Theatre-Collective in 2015 - has become a unique space for contemporary and experimental theatre in the country. ADO’s performances are mostly without a fixed script and it uses no words, breaking the strict patterns of traditional theatre.