loscorderos is a Spanish company selected by modul-dance in 2012 to develop the piece ULTRA_innocence. We interviewed Pablo Molinero during their residency at Graner, in Barcelona.
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In September 2011, Fearghus Ó Conchúir wrote the following article focused on his experience during the research he developed at Dance Gate Lefkosia Cyprus.
My abiding memory of the research time I spent in Nicosia was of the last evening spent with some of the delegates of the Dance/Body conference on the Turkish side of the city. We followed the academic Stavros Karayanni there to a cafe in a beautiful old square that once a month hosted a ‘pink party’ for gays and lesbians. There, Stavros danced a delicious, friendly belly-dance and I felt in that moment the embodiment of the conference theme: Dance/Body at the Crossroads of Culture.
Here was dancing where politics, gender, sexuality and ethnicity shimmied and swayed. And it felt good to be there.
My time in Nicosia was under the rubric of research module with modul-dance. Having used research at the Art Stations in Poznan and a residency at The Place to help me make my new work Tabernacle, I had originally intended that a research visit to Dance Gate in Nicosia would be part of that process too. It didn’t work out that way but when I was invited to speak at the Dance/Body conference, it made sense to combine it with a period of research there.
While I didn’t have a studio in Nicosia during that time, it didn’t matter. I was recovering from a knee surgery so couldn’t dance. Besides, having come directly from premiering Tabernacle in the Dublin Dance Festival what I needed was time to assimilate and reflect on that process. Doing it in such an stimulating context as the divided city of Nicosia, given that Ireland has its own history of division, helped many thoughts to settle in my head and opened up some new avenues for thinking. Arianna Economou of Dance Gate arranged for me to stay in a house directly on the green line that separates Greek Nicosia from what they call ‘the other side’ or Turkish-occupied Nicosia. Having a checkpoint directly outside my door, hearing the call to prayer from the Turkish mosques, seeing the rubble of bombed buildings and the guns of young soldiers reminded me how fraught the encounter with otherness can be.
And yet I was also delighted to find that the no-man’s land of the green line has created a haven for plant and animal life that has a protected corridor across divided Cyprus. There is space for growth and possibility in the fissures between people.
There were many practical benefits to being in Nicosia too. Because the conference was supported by modul-dance, there was a gathering of the partners there. It was a bonus to be able to meet many of those people to whom I’d scarcely had a chance to talk when we first gathered in Lyon last year. Because I spoke at the conference, I had an opportunity to explain a little more about what motivates my work and it felt that this extra information was useful in letting the partners get to know me. With the partners who are supporting the residencies and tour of Tabernacle in November, it was much more concrete to be able to talk through face-to-face the details that we have discussed by email a dozen times.
It was also inspiring to see the work of fellow modul-dance artist Alexandra Waierstall. The extract from Mapping the Wind that I saw made me want to understand her process and priorities. We’ve only just begun a conversation but it made me realise how keen I am to understand the work of all the MD artists and what a pity it is that the opportunity to do so is limited to these chance crossings. These opportunities for exchange between artists and MD partners are what I hoped would come out of modul-dance but it was luck that made them possible in Nicosia. The research module wasn’t supposed to turn out like that. I had intended to do it in the Spring. But having this time to think after an intense creation process, to be stimulated by the environment and the conference delegates, to meet fellow artists and MD partners was very beneficial.
I look forward to the next phase of modul-dance activity when we undertake residencies and presentations of Tabernacle this November at Mercat de les Flors, Kino Siska and The Place.
Interview with Slovenian artist Tina Valentan done in October 2012. In this video, she and her collaborator Luka Martin Škof talk about the project Working Title, where they analyze the relation between a moving body and the gaze.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
Studio footage of a new work-in-progress by Itamar Serussi entitled Frost. Filmed in Bassano and London, 2013. Itamar Serussi - choreography & dance
Modul-dance interviewed the Greek artist Patricia Apergi during a residency at Graner Barcelona to create Planites. She talks about the concept developed during the creation process.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
Playlist with interviews focused on the [8:Tension] Young Choreographers' Series @ ImPulstanz 2014
With the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series the festival audience gets an insight into the most challenging artistic approaches of a new generation of choreographers.
Interviews produced by participants of the meta_media lab@ ImPulsTanz 2014
led by Marlon Barrios Solano
Lab members: Franzi Kreis, Rocio Marano, Charlotta Ruth.
http://www.impulstanz.com/en/meta-media-lab/
In 2011 I was privileged to be selected by modul-dance to create the performance Slipping Through My Fingers which premiered at Dansens Hus in Stockholm in September 2012.
In this project I deepened my collaboration with three dancers I have worked with for some years now; Katarina Eriksson, Moa Westerlund and Aleksandra Sende, but I also introduced a new dancer to the group; Elizaveta Penkova.
By my side was also Jukka Rintamäki, the composer I have worked closely together with for the last nine years. This time we were happy to invite Johan Skugge, a composer collaborating with Jukka. The duo performed live on stage, playing lap steel guitar and piano, combined with pre-recorded sound.
Slipping Through My Fingers by Helena Franzén (trailer 3min) from Helena Franzén on Vimeo.
Being a modul-dance artist enabled me to - for the first time - work together with my dancers and musicians outside Sweden creating the piece. The possibility of making new contacts with other artists and of course meeting a new audience is very valuable and supported me to grow as a chorographer.
My collaborators in the different “modules” has so far been two residencies at deVIR/ CAPa in Faro, Duncan Dance Research Center and presentation at Dansens Hus, Stockholm and Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona.
In Faro we started off the creative process. It was a great experience to begin the work in a new surrounding. This week in March we somehow got the chance to meet each other from scratch, since we were all there together under the same circumstances. We became our own masters of our time and the space. We realized how important the atmosphere of the space is and how it affects the qualities of the movements: the quiet, grey light created a strong, contrast to the intense light on the outside. This was a source of inspiration for the light design that I passed on to my light designer, Markus Granqvist. The calm surrounding and the friendly atmosphere in Faro made our group tighter and made us work very concentrated. Jukka Rintamäki found some new sounds on his lap steel guitar and recorded some improvisations that we also used later in the piece, the sounds transformed during the process and got deconstructed and manipulated many times during the process.
In April I had a week of residency in Athens, at The Isadora & Raymond Duncan Dance Research Center. This time I went on my own. It was a very intense week and I had the time to rehearse the solo I created for myself that was a part of Slipping Through My Fingers. I also had the great opportunity to give two classes to professional dancers and got to meet some of the local dancers and choreographers. The last day of my stay I presented a part of the solo work and talked generally about my work in an open showing. It’s very important to continue the discussions about the working conditions in the dance field and how we can survive in the profession.
Dansens Hus in Stockholm was my partner of production and presentation and offered a very generous period in their rehearsal studio and also a longer time on stage, preparing for the premiere. Their support was genuine and important.
Slipping Through My Fingers opened in 28th September, and I was very happy to receive a very positive feedback from both the press and the audience at Dansens Hus.
In November we took part of the SÂLMON< festival at Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona. This was a great experience to us all. It was my first time to perform in the south of Europe and we got a very good feeling coming from the audience. My work is probably different from the work that is created outside Scandinavia in the sense that it’s visually strong and maybe more quiet in the expression. It would have been interesting to have a talk with the audience afterwards and actually discuss the work and listen to the reactions and raise even more thoughts about what is defining us as choreographers. Do we have some recognizable qualities because of our nationality that define us as artists? Do I belong to some Scandinavian tradition in my way of creating and in my aesthetic choices? All those questions actually have grown during my experience with modul-dance.
I’m very happy to hear that the collaboration within modul-dance continues also after the year has finished, that I am still a modul-dance artist and can continue to network and work on new contacts. One year is very short to develop a network and I’m looking forward to seeing all modul-dance people soon again!
Friday 26th September at 19:30 GMT.
audience/choreographer/dancers/sound/light/video/story/technology all combine to create new ways of experiencing performance.
Please Switch On Your Mobile Phones is a research project conducted by TaikaBox and MOON, with funding from Nesta, AHRC and ACW and culminates in the third public beta test in Stiwdio Stepni, Y Ffwrnes, Llanelli and online via pleaseswitchon.com.
log in to pleaseswitchon.com to join in.
Here the dates of QUANTUM world tour. The piece will visit many countries and stay tuned for complementary programs of conferences and talks with Gilles Jobin and scientists. Meet Julius Von BIsmarck, Carla Scaletti and Giles Jobin at BAM in New York for the US première of QUANTUM. Gilles Jobin, CERN phycist Nicolas Chanon and visual artist Julius Von Bismarck will meet the audience in San Francisco. In Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte Brazilian phycicist from CERN, Claudio Lenz Cesar will have public interactions with Gilles Jobin. Stay tuned via www.gillesjobin.com. Join our newsletter or follow the company on facebook. You can also get more info through >Gilles Jobin's blog gillescollides
QUANTUM - Teaser from Cie Gilles Jobin on Vimeo.
QUANTUM WORLD TOUR 2013-15
-Première 23 september 2013 Théâtre Forum Meyrin Geneva @ CMS Experiment-Cessy France
QUANTUM world tour is part of events celebrating the 60th anniversary of CERN in 2014
/////////////////////////////////////////////////
NORTH AMERICA
2-3-4th october QUANTUM @ BAM/New York Next Wave Festival + Crossing The Lines Festival - New Settings Fondation Entreprise Hermes/USA
12-13th october QUANTUM @ ODC/San Francisco / USA + lecture about Cern residency with Cern physicist Nicolas Chanon. With the support of Swissnex San Francisco
16-17-18th october QUANTUM @ TDC/Vancouver / CANADA
SOUTH AMERICA
21 october QUANTUM @ Festival Danzalborde/Matucana Theatre/Santiago de Chile/ CHILE
23 october QUANTUM @ Festival Danzalborde/Valparaiso/ CHILE
26 october QUANTUM @ Bienal do Dança Do Ceara/Fortaleza/BRAZIL
29-30 october QUANTUM @ Festival Internacional Dança Belo Horizonte-FID/ BRAZIL + conference CERN physicist with the support of Swissnex Brazil
2 november QUANTUM @ Panorama Festival Rio de Janeiro/ BRAZIL + conference CERN physicist + Masterclass avec le soutien de Swissnex Brazil
EUROPE
6-7-8-9th november QUANTUM @ ARSENIC/Lausanne SWITZERLAND
12-13-14th november A+B=X @ ARSENIC/Lausanne SWITZERLAND (1997 creation rebuilt)
SOUTH AMERICA
21-22 november QUANTUM @ FAEL Lima/PERU
2015
27th February QUANTUM @ Mercat de La Flores / IDN Festival/Barcelona/SPAIN
November QUANTUM @ Saarbrucken/GERMANY
Itamar Serussi was selected for the modul-dance project after being proposed by Danshuis Station Zuid Tilburg. During the modul-dance conference that took place in October 2012 in Tilburg, Serussi talked with us about Mono, the piece developed under the project and inspired while buying a pram for his newly born twins. The advertisement said "In three clicks from mono to duo". In effect, mono is about several effects, directions, decisions and happenings coming together, and thus creating something new. Things that somehow "click" in place as well. As his own life does right now with the birth of his two kids, the international acclaim he experiences and this first chance to make a full-length dance piece for the theater.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
In May 2011, the Slovenian artist Jasmina Križaj wrote the following article for a modul-dance newsletter regarding her experience in the framework of the project.
Working period: from 04/04/2011 - 15/04/2011
Where: in Poznan, Poland - Art Stations Foundation
Who: Anja Bornsek, Cristina Planas Leitao, Jasmina Križaj and Tarras Some
Into the Out
Being in Poland was the first time for all of us. Have to admit I didn't know what to expect. There was a chance that it will feel like home and there is also very strong and in my opinion still somehow "fresh" historical memory. In some way it did feel like home.
After a long time I didn't feel like stranger while walking through the streets of another country.
We spend most of our time in the studio, which by the way, felt like a big privilege. It is a great theater/studio space, with beautiful made of red bricks back wall for great photos or video. The fact that the studio is in a shopping mall, gave us kind of perverse feeling. We are used to work far from so called normal human life, especially commercial one. But it is special when at and consumerism meet. I like the fact that somebody who doesn't reach so after art words but prefers commercial entertainment suddenly has both in one space. Maybe that changes people's perception about art. That it is not something just for privileged, that it is not something separated from our daily life, but it is actually like itself.
I was also giving technique classes of Flying Low. Have to say that I was very surprised by the speed and precision of working of Polish dancers. Really appreciate I could share my knowledge with them.
The work we did was very simple. But as they say "Less is more" was valuable also this time. The simplicity of the approach to the topic of Nervous System opened so many new chapters. Going deeper and deeper on physical, mental, philosophical and even emotional and spiritual level enrich and reveled many new possibilities but of course in the same time raised many new doubts and question. But I have to say those first two weeks of research were very productive and a good starting point and also a good take off for future research.
In the end I would just like to mention the generosity of the Art Stations Foundation team. Thank you very much!
Text written after an hour of shaking:
I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in What's eating Gilbert Grape. With restless body. Swallowed back muscles like a puffy dove. Lying on the floor I feel the big mass of my heart. The weight of my heart. Its greatness and also whole its heaviness. I started fearing I could break the muscles/fibers that are attaching it to the sternum, if I continue shaking. I feared I would break my heart.
Wish to experience a slow motion fall. Maybe my legs don't shake, cause I believe that shaky legs represent weakness? So many tiny habits just in the fingers and those. Jazz took me. Then left me. Then allowed me to compose an e-mail. I sorted my mind. It eased my anger and have. Left leg and kidneys stayed as they are-exhausted, sucked, lonely, uncooperative.
Constant thought, every recognition has to be understood, constant trying to do, to try, to experience. Trying not to try. How are we spending our thoughts? Do we move because of discomfort, because of the pleasure that follows after releasing this discomfort?
Picture: © Saša Kuzjak
PROTOBODY 1.0 by Brisa MP , develops international residency HANGAR from June to July with the support of “Ventanilla abierta” FONDART (National Fund for Culture and Arts, from the Chilean Government.
The residence offers two parallel lines of research; theoretical and practical. The theorical residence it is to continue the C + T MAP project, where she has mapped dance and technology artists and works in Latin America. This time she records the Catalan and Spanish artists working process.
At the practical phase, the project is researching and developing an autonomous reagent device for dialogue with the human body and produce specific gesture, recognizing the possible ranges of motion in the human-machine interaction. Explores new methodologies in the field of BT (BodyTechnology) production, from the combination of technical, scientific and artistic languages. In this context is to decipher the procedures of creation in BT that allow problematize the traditional structures of production stage work, where, as matter-body-art technology contaminate each other in the process of creating and learning; and expose the artistic research processes as exercises work.
Thus, PROTOBODY 1.0 continues her previous projects, carrying out research on human- device, focused on the moving body relationship, the modulation of body from technological devices, resulting interaction generate specific gestuality organized by the crossing of organic and artificial actuators. This project is part of thesis from Master Technology and Aesthetics of Electronic Arts, she developed at the Tres de Febrero National University (Buenos Aires, Argentina).
Work in progress PROTOBODY 1.0 : http://cuerpoytecnologia.blogspot.com.es/ ;
HANGAR BCN
SSept. 20 / 12: 00 to 14:00
Protobody presentation [ project development and handmade robotic object JMP.TC Model 1. DIY , open hardware ]
Emma Martin has been named by the Tanz Magazine as 1 of the 3 Hoffnungstraeger ("bearers of hope") 2014 in its yearbook. Read here the whole article in German.
Since the premiere of Tundra last May, the reviews of the project have been excellent. Read here some of them.
The Loose Collective was selected for the modul-dance project after being proposed by Tanzquartier Wien. Here, an interview with two of its members, talking about the process of creation of The Old Testament According to The Loose Collective.
More modul-dance videos on Numeridanse.tv.
I Description
The performance is in the form of a circuit situated in a horticultural nursery on the outskirts of Cologne. The circuit consists of three buildings whose interiors are divided and semanticised during the course of the performance: a big, brick-walled greenhouse, a small glass greenhouse and a hothouse with a solid sliding door and side sheets. These buildings are at right angles to one another, with the small glass greenhouse, about 2x3m, at the intersection.
The performance begins at the front of the large brick greenhouse. The five female performers – all “experts in everyday life” – plant flowerpots lined on a trolley, each bearing a sign. On each pot is a label for different gender identities, key concepts of gender studies, names from queer culture, general expressions of uncertainty, symbols and lettering in Bengali. Each of the small flowerpots is planted together with a colourful piece of candy: “Take a goody – take a fixation”, the installation seems to say, “Both are sweet – and neither are natural”.
After the flowerpots are planted, the five performers move to their respective positions, among which the audience can move freely and decide for themselves where and when to enter and leave the on-going performances (I also jumped from one place to the next, meaning that the following cannot be a full representation of what was going on).
Annonya and Katha stay at the large greenhouse. They are both hijra, representatives and activists of the “third gender” in Bangladesh, and trained dancers. They begin by presenting the hijra culture from its ritual colourful side. Flanked by two canvases showing films from their everyday lives and urban and rural street life, along with familiar religious moments, they erect a ritual space with silver vase-like vessels and colourful gift boxes, lining it with Bengali lettering in flower potting soil. Here they dress in traditional garments, speak and sing into microphones, thereby illustrating the traditional role of the third gender of blessing families at weddings, house-warming celebrations and births of children. There is something double-edged about the processes throughout; the performers seem ironically distanced and at some point a shifting occurs that is unavoidable if the hijra are not to be idealised but realistically portrayed: the pictorial Bengali façade breaks. The performers move towards the audience, clapping. “Hey, hey, hey, we’re hijra. We’re poor, give us some money”. They leave the ritual space. In a monotone green-planted part of the greenhouse, Katha erects upside-down hammers, sheathing the stems with condoms. She plants the colourful Bengali condom packaging amid the green monoculture. Poverty and forced prostitution: the dark side of the otherwise colourful third gender, which in modern secularised Bengali culture has no alternative income. Katha is instructed in her sheathing of the hammers by Annonya, who (we learn from the performer biography in the programme) also works as an activist and sex worker consultant in Bangladesh.
At the end of their multi-faceted performances and stories, the two dancers move into a tent located in front of the large greenhouse, where they prepare food on gas stoves and eat until the end of the event: a working day consisting of conversation, feast, charity, education and paid sex reaches its humble end.
In the second position, the small greenhouse, there is a red sofa. Here, Cuban native Melissa Marie García Noriega tells the story of her life – sometimes face-to-face, sometimes simply lost in her own thoughts. A carefree childhood, in which no one was bothered by the boy behaving girlishly; then a rape, the knowledge that the girl in her had been abused; a lack of family acceptance of her feminine demeanour at puberty, the grotesque urge to become a Cuban macho, then, finally, deliverance. Art studies, psychotherapy, the birth of a son, the possibilities of a new self-determination in living with a man and eventually her sex change to become the woman she had already been. Melissa still lives with the same partner; the audience is caught up in the sweet relief of a happy ending. During all these stories, which may have given rise to either concern among the audience or, even worse, the feeling of psychotherapeutic authority, the dancer and choreographer succeeds in remaining dominant throughout. The red couch is not a Freudian spot for self-exposure, but an arena in which Melissa moves through gloom, aggression, ironic poses, excitement and truly refreshing directness. The amiability that she arouses in doing so, the self-confidence that she exudes, catches the audience and turns it into a close friend – and if there were not the other “stages” yet to visit, one would stay to listen to her much longer.
Melissa’s story alternates between her experiences in Cuba and Germany, the greenhouse serving as an intercultural intersection which connects the Bengali scenery in the large greenhouse with that in the hothouse opposite. The latter are dedicated to gender approaches in Western culture. Initially, the sliding door of the hothouse is open and we see earth grooves in the fore room, jackets on hangers above. In perspective, the “asparagus field” – masculine connotation attended – stretches out into a monoculture of pansies. The trained mathematician and physicist Michelle Niwicho begins to label the sliding doors with the milestones of her life. Then she closes the door from the inside and it takes a while before the audience discovers that they are not locked out, but can observe the interior through the rolled-up sheets at the side. At first, one feels forced to a voyeurism, but the inner actions soon clarify that the opposite is the case. There is a need for the construction of this interior, or rather, this inner life, in order that messages may be sent out of this mentality of security.
Michelle constructs her workplace: desktop, laptop, mouse. Here (as in real life) she writes a blog that can be read both on the PC screen, and on the canvas located at the inner side of the sliding door. The text is about the decision to live as a transgender woman, about the problems arising from the fact of being a father of three when she finally came out, of the bureaucratic difficulties of being recognised as a third gender in Germany; but also about acceptance in one’s own family, managing one’s career, rising assertiveness and wonderfully grotesque moments of everyday life. Following Michelle’s words as she writes, her correction of spelling errors, the search for the right phrases, produces a similar emotional closeness as to the life story told by Melissa in her greenhouse.
While she writes, Michelle gets up and with a pair of pliers cuts the wires holding the jackets one by one, letting them fall to the ground. Every time a male garment is removed, she pulls a cord, and female clothes grow from the asparagus beds... like Spartoi springing from dragon’s teeth: the ancient warriors of Thebes – the modern struggle of the transgender woman.
At the back, in a field of yellow blooming pansies (also cropped with high heels), the Brazilian performer Greta Pimenta removes her female clothing and puts it on hangers, much like the jackets at the front. She showers naked for almost the entire performance and presents her female body with male genitals. She remains silent throughout. As always when an audience is confronted with nudity, there is irritation, and the mixture of sexual markers certainly intensifies this. But the fact that the performer is naked for over an hour, in which she never gives the impression of being watched or feeling embarrassed, alters the perception of her bi-gender body to a normality: it belongs – to both the performance and the utopia of a free society.
As a whole, the two areas of the hothouse function as the union of two aspects of transgenderness: Michelle’s intellectual approach, which does not shy away from self-doubt, and Greta’s unquestionable confidence: two states of an inner life, intellect and body, which is presented to the audience with a permissiveness that annihilates the exploitative habit of voyeurism.
II Relation to spatial theory
The production convincingly works with the cultural semantisation of the physical structures: the “otherness” of the Bengali hijra in the large greenhouse, the link of interculturality in the smaller greenhouse, and one’s “own” culture in the hothouse, all logically connected on a circuit through which the audience is allowed to wander freely. The venue thereby becomes the representation of a larger circuit or (according to Foucault), a Heterotopia, which draws opposite and remote elements together in a microcosm representing the whole.
Another interpretation is provided through the performers’ biographies, which form one of the fundaments of the production. The individual nature of these prohibits any cultural generalization. There is a variety of body concepts depending on the individual performer and his cultural frame, reaching from the mythical connotations but social exclusion of third genderness, to hormone treatment and finding deliverance in the revised body, textural reflections of the gender shift and the self-confident presentation of both sexes in one body. All of this is presented to the audience not in a brash, but in a quiet, sensitive, humorous, thoughtful and very rich visual appearance. And with this, transsexualism proves itself to be far “more natural” than the dominant heteronormativity and sexual binarity of our society. This allows an intercultural and transgender discourse to be personally experienced, intellectually as well as emotionally. An experience like this makes it clear that talking merely about the third gender is not enough to achieve an acceptance that includes all aspects of sexual versatility.
The spatial semantics of the place itself, the municipal horticultural nursery, is an elementary constituent of this combination of interculturality and transsexuality: the greenhouse as the epitome of our “will to breed”, of the artificial and authoritarian compulsion to frantically produce normativity: a non-place in the pejorative sense, deindividualising and alienating (Augé); monocultures as symbols of a society that wraps a hostile tristesse around non-conforming bodies, compelling them to adapt. But in the end, these bodies look more natural in the eyes of the audience than the compulsive order of “asparagus vs. pansies”. Thus, the imagery of the performance generates an effect of great sustainability in the viewer’s mind, giving her/him a glimpse of utopia.
Also, the production cleverly points beyond the confines of the nursery, as it stands in the shadow of the phallus-like tower of Cologne-Poll’s Technical Control Centre (TÜV). This is not just a place for general (and in this case typical German) normalisation, but had also been the birthplace of the DIN standards for breast implants – a cradle of normalised gender features which the colourful activities of ID-Clash contrasts with the image of versatile self-determination. If one adds the sadness of the adjacent monotonous rows of graves of the Deutzer cemetery or even the nearby (and even more German) allotments with its garden gnomes (including pompously phallic jelly bag caps), it becomes clear that a better location can hardly be imagined for this performance.
In addition, it is worth noting that the 1st of November 2013 finally saw the “third gender” legally recognized in Germany: Hiesl and Kaiser’s performance, which is to run again in Dresden in 2015, can be seen as a celebration of this event. Or better still, an accompanying ritual, which converts the deindividualising place of monoculture and gender norms into an utopian space of intercultural and transgendered freedom.
Picture: Cologne 2013. © Roland Kaiser
Developing our piece Pausing within the context of modul-dance has been a significant experience for us. As in our work, we are always interested in sharing voices through collaboration, we found this context of modul-dance somehow corresponding to this desire - a group of dance houses collaborating in order to bring forward an idea and allow creation to emerge.
Specifically for us, during the creation we went through the residencies in the Duncan Center in Athens and Graner in Barcelona- places which without the frame of modul-dance would be difficult to get to. The two houses were extremely inspiring and rich for the work - the space in Duncan center as well as its amazing surrounding and atmosphere which Penelope nurtures had an essential impact on the process. Also the possibility to meet other artists and share like our meeting with the other residents at that time - Marcos and Pablo has been super inspiring and simply joyful.
The time in May 2012 in Graner has been just before our premiere and we felt we had to "wrap up the piece". Time was short but exactly this constraint of time allowed a concentrated and focused time of radical decisions when the piece finally got its shape - it was the 4th version of the piece already- and its structure today remained the "Barcelona version" after a tour of around 20 shows by now.
In terms of coproduction, we were supported by Hellerau in Dresden which also hosted us for shows in October. Again a very different house allowed the piece to evolve and adjust itself to the beautiful space of Nancy Spero in the theater. Last April we were invited to show the piece in Toulouse, during a modul-dance reunion which has been interesting for us - for the directors of the dance houses to see the work finalized more than a year after the first encounter in Barcelona and many shows.
It has been an interesting experience to be a part of this frame of modul dance, a different feeling than the "regular one" of independent houses supporting the piece. Somehow this feeling of connection and network feels like a new way that should be explored further. There is great potential in this way as a mode of functioning, a mode that can support more the contemporary dance field as it is today, than the so called standard mode of function of theater/festival and artist.
Picture: © Emmanuelle Bayart
My first encounter with the modul-dance network was in November 2012 in Barcelona when I presented my work and the idea of the piece Duel. I was trumphally pregnant at that time so I new that if I want to create that show I would really need some support. My budget was ridicoulously small and on top I wished to check for the first time how it is to direct the others without being at the same time a performer (regarding my condition but as well in order to change the way I used to work). And thanks to the modul-dance network I managed.
After the mentionned above presentation it took me a year to finalize the piece. I was already after a first research period. All the working phases took places in the associated dance houses. Luckily three of them coproduced the show (one came "on board" after the meeting in Barcelona). Besides that and a help of the Polish Ministry of Culture (received by the Art Stations Foundation) I did not get any other support. So the budget stayed small but what had mainly changed was the fact that I could offer to the team very good conditions of work. The modular system helped me to get distance to the created material and to continue working in the "between periods". It gave me more time to prepare the studio rehearsals were the whole team would gather together. It was needed as in the same time I was taking care of the production matters. That why I apreciated the fact that we have met everybody personally in Barcelona. It helped the communication process to become smooth and direct without any burocractic nonsense or stiff protocols. It was honestly a great relief and this "humane" aspect of the whole production process I appreciate the most. I find it harder to establish an easy going relation with the programmer than with the other artist but within the modul-dance network it all happened in a relaxed way. I guess because the rules were very clear: it was all about matching. The artists were looking for the right house to get the right support for his/hers work, the curators were looking for the right artists to help him/her develop the right work. And whatever right means it was clear from the beginning that there is no need to come along with everybody.
So now its end of April 2014. My son Leon is 16 months old and the Duel had its premiere in November 2013. But... the show is not over . The original crew of the piece hapilly decided to spread in the world with their own babies so now it is my time to perform the piece. At the moment I'm working with another dancer on an adaptation of Duel which will be presented in Poznań in Art Stations Foundation the upcoming June and later on in CND Paris in November (were I was invited for a residency to rehearse the new version of the show). So luckily, even after the premiere I still get the chance to work on the piece following the idea that the "final presentation" does not have to be the end of creation.
Picture: © Peter Fiebig
Marlon Barrios asked me to post my thoughts on dance and technology in my work:
Here TEXT TO SPEECH (2008), a piece in which each dancer uses a PC with "text to speech" programs for the computers to read texts. A simple use of high end technology but in the context of the piece the manipulation of computer seems taken out of a normal daily life and does not seem technological. Technicaly we could not have made this piece 15 years ago, and 20 years ago the portable computer was not yet avaialble for maintstream use. And dramaturgicaly neither would have it been possible, 20 years ago a portable computer would have looked like a science fiction piece! I needed the audience to relate to the piece as a contemporary problematic. A laptoop computer in 2008 is an ordinary daily life object. When I was a kid a mobile phone was only to exists in Star Treck, now when you see an old movie you think "but why he does not use his mobile phone?". So the computer object has moved dramaturgicaly in less than 20 years from a science fiction status to a daily life item: We now live in this Blade Runner like world where technology is part of our life as objects, embeded in our life, our should we say that WE are embeded inside technology.
We used computers in Text To Speech to be able read live "fake" news of war and conflicts. It was very useful in the creation process, very flexible, we could modify our texts ourselves without needing a technician. We manipulated orignal press agency news about the war in Irak, and changed "Irak" by "Switzerland". With this little "mind" trick", we relocated distant events such as a bomb killing 20 people in a market in Bagdad by a bomb killing twenty poeple in a market in Geneva. Suddenly the "bodycount" became real, the news became more real and not anymore a distant lithany of numbers of death but a reality "virtualy" located in your backyard... A brutal switch of perpectives in the mond of the spectator. Te synthethic voice of the "text to speech" program, adds to the distanciation. Also, we were able to perform the pece in its original language, in japanase, german, french, english... This piece has been inspired by a story my uncle told me and also has to do with technology and the impact of it into reality. When he was a young journalist in a news agency in Zurich, he received the telex with the news of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing at the end of WW2. At this time, only him had the immediate info and the words were creeping out of the telex machine physicaly into his hands. The strip of paper coming out of the machine was slowly revealing the horror of the distant disaster. It was the power of suggestions of the words and the empathy of the reader, not the technology in itself that was revealing the horror-the same machine was also "vomiting" "banal" news . But without the technology, this "virtual experience of reality" would not have happenned to him and marked him for life.
QUANTUM (2013) Is a piece made out after my residency at CERN, the huge particle physic laboratory based in the Geneva area who famously revelead the existence of the Higgs bozon on the 4th of July 2012. I was at CERN on that day and the "virtual" emotion of finding something truly invisble was high. It was the technology who made us capable of tinking about this discovery that can not be seen. (see my residency blog). The piece QUANTUM came out after theree months residency inside this super high tech campus, the site of the bigger machine ever built by humans... I had this "creative collission" with co resident german visual artist Julius von Bismarck. Julis conceived a "kynetic light instalation" operated and constructed by his regular collaborator german engenier Martin Shied (he operates the piece on tour). Based on the pendulum principle, the 4 industrial lamps are piloted by a complicated algorythm that send signal to 4 motors that makes possible the syncronisation and variations of the movement of the lamps. It is super flexible and adaptable we can create almost any pendulum movement.
The music has been composed by American composer Caral Scaletti on her powerfull sound design machine KYMA, (she is the maker of the software of the machine and husband Kurt Heibel conceived the hardware-Kyma is one of the most powerfull soudn design computer in the market). She used real data taken from CERN LHC by a process of "data sonification". Collaborating with phycicist Lili Asquith she managed to use real data to produce amazing music (listen to phycicist Lili Asquith about LHC data sonification and datata driven Kyma sound project)
To me, technology is a tool, something that is not to necesarely be seen for itself but necessary only if it gives more meanig to a piece. My next project is a 3D dance film, I am very much interested by the volume of the space virtualy created inside our brain by the trick stereo images are playing inside on our heads...
QUANTUM SET UP. THE LIGHT INSTALATION RIG////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
QUANTUM IS ON TOUR IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA IN OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER
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QUANTUM WORLD TOUR 2013-15
-Première 23 september 2013 Théâtre Forum Meyrin Geneva @ CMS Experiment-Cessy France
QUANTUM world tour is part of events celebrating the 60th anniversary of CERN in 2014
NORTH AMERICA
2-3-4th october QUANTUM @ BAM/New York Next Wave Festival + Crossing The Lines Festival - New Settings Fondation Entreprise Hermes/USA
12-13th october QUANTUM @ ODC/San Francisco / USA + lecture about Cern residency with Cern physicist Nicolas Chanon. With the support of Swissnex San Francisco
16-17-18th october QUANTUM @ TDC/Vancouver / CANADA
SOUTH AMERICA
21 october QUANTUM @ Festival Danzalborde/Matucana Theatre/Santiago de Chile/ CHILE
23 october QUANTUM @ Festival Danzalborde/Valparaiso/ CHILE
26 october QUANTUM @ Bienal do Dança Do Ceara/Fortaleza/BRAZIL
29-30 october QUANTUM @ Festival Internacional Dança Belo Horizonte/ BRAZIL + conference CERN physicist avec le soutien de Swissnex Brazil
2 november QUANTUM @ Panorama Festival Rio de Janeiro/ BRAZIL + conference CERN physicist + Masterclass avec le soutien de Swissnex Brazil
EUROPE
6-7-8-9th november QUANTUM @ ARSENIC/Lausanne SWITZERLAND
12-13-14th november A+B=X @ ARSENIC/Lausanne SWITZERLAND
SOUTH AMERICA
21-22 november QUANTUM @ FAEL Lima/PERU
LAND V.0 is a project that investigates physical versus virtual space, and how time, space and presence are embodied via the internet towards the creation of a communicating relationship. A collaborative project between Lisa Parra, choreographer (USA) and Daniel Pinheiro, video/media artist (Portugal) for developing methods for artistic research using telecommunication technologies.
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The project between Lisa Parra and Daniel Pinheiro started as a collaboration within the Minded Motion lab #MetaAcademy – realized during the Bates Dance Festival 2013 – organized by Marlon Barrios Solano, Rachel Boggia, Nancy Stark Smith and Josephine Dorado. An online lab dedicated to the exploration of embodiment activities and co-creation across the internet.
More info: http://daniel-pinheiro.tumblr.com/LAND
