Diop

Fabrice Mazliah/Work of Act

July 2023, Albertium Dresden
(RE)FRAME curation and concept by Carolin Brandl

Conceived in the form of moving choir constructed around the poem by Birago Diop, The Breath Of The Ancestors, this spontaneous performance invites the audience to follow as the performers rhythm their physicalities and voices in a play of incantations. In a world where the realm of things is under minded and the one that are gone truly absent this work attempts to offers a soul to things and a presence to souls or at least a space for cohabitation.

Photos by Silke Briel

Embodying Bodies

Fabrice Mazliah/Work of Act

May 2023, Frankfurt Mousonturm

Inspired by the work of biologist Lynn Margulis on the concept of Symbiosis and her understanding of the human body as a Holobiont (an ecosystem where human cells cohabit with multiple other life forms), this performance explores what it means to experience ourselves, our bodies as not strictly human but as a community of interrelated and interdependent organisms, cohabiting and inter-reacting with one another, providing for each other, living together. This work offers a listening to micro places in our bodies and the diversity within them, taking us out of a binary and reductive regime, cultivating a different sense of ourselves and the environment we are part of. In this co-being exercise, various elements and living organisms are invited as guides, to learn from and to be formed by. Together with these other-than-human partners bodies are combined and recombined in order to reveal what takes place within us, how the merging of various entities has invented us and how we can learn what it means to create together.

Photos by baumann fotografie

Practicing Empathy #2by2

Yasmeen Godder Company

July 2021, Frankfurt Mousonturm

Since early 2019, the Yasmeen Godder Company is deeply involved in a research project titled “Practicing Empathy”, out of which a series of outcomes are being created. Each of the outcomes explore the notion of empathy through a variety of perspectives and approaches, attempting to look at what opens us up emotionally. What makes us identify and connect with others, as well as with ourselves? And how can we create new practices, rituals, songs, and choreographies, which may open up our ability to take in complexities without fear and distrust?

Nur Mut - eine Häutung

co>labs

June 2020, Tafelhalle Nürnberg

Wir sind nicht rassistisch. We are happy. Und offen. Und tolerant sowieso.
Wir akzeptieren auch die Anderen. Wir sind kluge Individuen, unabhängig von Hautfarbe.
No problems. Wir haben reine, weiße Westen.
We live happily in Happyland. Oh jippie yeah.

Photos by Simeon Johnke

Dua

Taulant Shehu

January 2020, Frankfurt Mousonturm, Staatstheater Darmstadt
November 2018, Frankfurt Mousonturm
November 2018, Wartburg Wiesbaden

Taulant Shehu, a dancer from the Hessisches Staatsballett and up-and-coming choreographer, explores his Albanian roots in his new creation Dua. “Family and traditions are two important foundations for Al-banian culture; there is hardly another time when they are more closely bound than at a wedding ceremony,” he says. In Dua, a wedding as the pinnacle of festive-ness, happiness and the promise of remaining together forever becomes the point of departure to reflect on living together in general. Taulant Shehu directs his attention to the individual participants and choreo-graphically explores their own stories, emotions and backgrounds. The composer Arne Stevens provides music for this danced approach to tradition; it places the cultural ori- gins of this work in a musical focus as well by working with traditional Albanian instruments.

Photos by Maciej Rusinek
Video by De-Da Productions
A production by Tanzplattform Rhein-Main, Hessisiches Staatstheater

Macbeth + Disturbance

Joseph Sturdy

Novembr - December 2019, Gottsunda Dans + Teater

What would you do if you were told that your life is predetermined? That you would gain power. That you would kill. And that you would eventually lose everything.

Joseph Sturdy's set of Macbeth takes off from Shakespeare's drama, but focuses on Macbeth alone: a man driven power-mad who, slowly but surely, loses control of both his life and the world he has created around him.

Macbeth takes us on a magical but unsettling journey through the conscience, relationships, power and crime. We meet those who realize their horrible deeds, and follow them on a balancing-act between political power play, morality and human vulnerability.

Photos by Mark Harris

The Answer

Yochan Kang

October 2019, Sejong Performing Arts Center; Seoul PAF

Our ‘Answer’ for the World
Where the answers have disappeared
and for the people who wait for the Answers

Cast: Max Levy, Kazuma Glen Motomura, Eri Watanabe
Choreographer: Yochan Kang
Director: Joung-Hyun Park
ComposerL SEAYOOL
Lighting Director: Ik-Hyun Kim
Video Director: Geonu Park
Planner: Ji-Yeon Shin

Golden Rules

co>labs

September 2019, Tafelhalle Nürnberg

co>labs erforscht in Golden Rules innere Vorgänge von Menschen, die sich dem Radikalen in seiner vielfältigen Ausprägung verschreiben. Das Projekt setzt sich mit Grenzgängen an den schlechten Geschmack, an die Unbedingtheit des Siegens, an die Erträglichkeit von Leid, an den Bereich unter die Gürtellinie, an das Erdulden von Diffamierung und Degradierung und an die Angst vor dem fremden Gegenüber auseinander.

Photos by Karin Stöhr

Fleshless Beast

kNonAme Artist/Roderick George

June 2018, Sophiensaele Berlin
April 2018, Le Pavillon Noir Aix-en-Provence

Taking influences from classical ballet, hip-hop, breakdance, and modern dance, Roderick George contemplates the race relations of being an immigrant, and challenges the status quo in his new piece, Fleshless Beast. Collaborating with artist LOTIC, both from Houston, Texas, they deconstruct their understandings of race, globalization, and their personal experiences through dance and music.

Video by Jubal Battisti/Harumi Terayama

Paradise 3.0

co>labs

January 2018, Tafelhalle Nürnberg

Paradise 3.0 wagt einen neuen Zugriff auf die Idee des totalen Theaters, wie sie ein Erwin Piscator in den 20er Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts voraussah.

Angespornt von utopistischen Sehnsüchten aus der Vergangenheit fordern wir das Zukünftige heraus.

Kommen Sie mit! Wieweit wagen wir uns hinaus?

Photos by Sebastian Autenrieth

Under The Knife

Malcolm Sutherland

November 2017, Tafelhalle Nürnberg

“Als Tänzer und Choreograf interessiere ich mich für die Beziehung, die wir zu unserem Körper haben: Wohin führen Schönheitsoperationen? Werden wir bald eine Gesellschaft vollkommen schöner und äußerlich perfekter Menschen sein – Klone, die nach einem Schönheitsideal geformt sind? Wie werden wir dann Schönheit wahrnehmen können, wenn wir alle gleich aussehen und uns der Gegenpol, das Hässliche, fehlt? Die moderne Gesellschaft zwingt uns, unsere eigene Persönlichkeit aufzugeben, um einem Bild zu entsprechen, das andere Menschen von uns erwarten. Ich frage mich, was es für unser Inneres bedeutet, wenn wir unsere äußere Schale verändern, wenn wir Körperteile austauschen oder eine andere Gestalt annehmen. In meinem Stück entferne ich alle äußeren Schichten auf der Suche nach der individuellen Schönheit.”

-Malcolm Sutherland

Photos by Sebastian Autenrieth

Video by Johannes Zenk

Staatsballett Nürnberg

Soloist

2011-2017, direction: Goyo Montero

Performing in works by Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, Johan Inger, Mats Ek, Nacho Duato, Goyo Montero, Jeroen Verbruggen, Cayetano Soto, Gentian Doda, James Sutherland

Photos by Yaiza Davilla, Jesus Vallinas, Bettina Stöß, Ludwig Olah