choreography

March: Backyard Ballet

Choreographing ‘Slow-ballet’ for my instagram podcast as part of the program Dis-Tanzen-Solo.

Early spring my practice went outdoors. Developing choreographic material at Humboldthain and on the Uferhallen compound. Part of it is to apply authentic movement principles to classical vocabulary. Reducing perfection to marking level (15%) and strip tension plus the classical attitude. Searching a quotidian mode as if walking in the streets.
Unlike often in ballet this quality allows my breathing to switch to an aerobic use of oxygen. The low-fy approach leaves also capacity to watch, hear and react with the environment. In the park when dogs and families walk by there are split second eye contacts which are actually interpersonal.
All in all I am currently searching for a mind state while dancing which can stick to a routine, yet perceives what is going on around and is less busy with ‘showing’.

Later I taught the sequence to Yui and here we are just spacing it together in her backyard. Feels familiar dancing with her since we often trained together in class. There is an underlying beat to the material but it’s intuitive. We need to see each other in the periphery and there is an attempt for synchronicity though I like the slight off-ness between us.

Thanks to the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland e.V. für supporting my choreografic research,
and to Yui Kawaguchi for the video.

„Gefördert durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR, [Hilfsprogramm DIS-TANZEN/ tanz:digital/ DIS-TANZ-START] des Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.“

Glutamat in Progress

Two weeks into ‘Glutamat’. Researching by myself. Once in a while different dancers are joining on the forth floor of Ballhaus Ost. Collecting material about fast- and slow food behaviour. Climbing up and down the small ladder to fit the set into the space. Eating Ramen. Reading on ballet by ‘Mishima’ (Thx to Gestalta! And yes, he is problematic.) Learning sequences to the dancers, in- and outdoors. Eating Ramen. Checking out Codemiko (Thx to Frances!), this awesome fem streamer and former gaming programer, who drives people crazy on snitch these days. I much enjoy her edgy, over the top style! Here are some in between steps. ..

This research is part of Take Care Residenzen, supported by Ballhaus Ost, Flausen Netzwerk and Fonds Darstellende Künste. Very glad to continue this work in progress which started last year for ‘An unboxing Ballet Beat’. Choreographic documentation on video will be up on this blog from mid April.

 

 

Dis – Tanzen Funding

Yea! I am very glad to announce that the Dachverband Tanz has granted my ‘Dis-Tanz Solo’ scholarship, a promotion programme for freelance creative-dance artists.
The program supports my artistic reorientation from dancing and performing towards focussing on choreographic work for nine month.
On this blog and on social media I will document my research material. The first tutorial or live stream podcasts will be end of January 2021.

„Gefördert durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR, [Hilfsprogramm DIS-TANZEN/ tanz:digital/ DIS-TANZ-START] des Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.“

An Unboxing Ballet Beat

A collaboration between Mmakgosi Kgabi and Dasniya Baddhanasiri invited by
Tanznacht Berlin 2020.

Sound and vocal composition / performance: Mmakgosi Kgabi
Choreography / set design / dance: Dasniya Baddhanasiri

Thanks to Julian Weber, Jacopo Lanteri, and Tanzfabrik.
Pictures by Dieter Hartwig.

AN UNBOXING BALLET BEAT

September 13th, 2020

For the closing event of Tanznacht Berlin 2020, two very different female artists have been invited to combine their practices: Mmakgosi Kgabi is a voice-over artist who finds ways of embodying language and speech with her own «(Dance) Encyclopedia of the Mouth». Dasniya Baddhanasiri is a ballet dancer and choreographer who runs a dojo in Wedding in the Japanese art of Tight Bondage.

In «An Unboxing Ballet Beat», Mmakgosi Kgabi and Dasniya Baddhanasiri conduct an open, body-voice dialogue, simultaneously breaking down sentences and ballet vocabulary to create a rough working environment. By their reciprocal approach of bodily listening, they open spaces in which processes of connecting and dividing occur equally, in parallel. The audience is cordially invited to engage with this exchange and to join the artists on their journey through a space-time continuum full of surprises.

Mmakgosi Kgabi is a trained physical theatre and improvisation performer and also a performance facilitator. Her work often interrogates the premise of identity and nationalism, revisiting themes on the Black Female Body Politics and Migration.

The choreographer Dasniya Baddhanasiri researches movement from the perspective of the dancer. Her primary interest is the redefinition of body images, which she seeks within a physical and cultural spectrum ranging from Japanese bondage art to deconstructed ballet practice.

Ticket and more information here

The Männy

In June we were invited to show The Männy at Autoren(theater)tage. Because of the situation it’s now postponed to autumn. Fingers crossed that it can come to Berlin! It will be a crazy job to set up the installtion in a new space, despite our meticulous documentation of every single rope critter.

Installtion – The Männy

New years vacation, knitting and knotting this and them, developing part of the stage design for ‘The Männy’. On the left suspended a cocoon which gives birth to an adorable rope creature in the piece. The happy side of the cocoon is made of more organic material, flowers, willow cotton, beeswax and compostable left overs. The back is covered in bitumen, an oily and somewhat burned, demolished landscape.   ➿

Theatre: The Männy

Just finishing an inspiring challenge with Kevin Rittberger, Nora Khuon and Sandra Fink at Schauspiel Hannover. ‘The Männy’, created with texts and themes from Donna Haraway’s work ‘Staying with the Trouble’, amongst others.
It was intense! My brain turning to mash reading and discussing theories and highly sensitive texts with five devoted actors, and a patient team. Everybody was open to the very end. Working so detailed through and inbetween each sentence with Kevin and Nora. And, open to dive with me into the rope world, learning some shibari, and navigating my rope installation through space as if it was another play partner. A sort of rhizom, air roots, or anarchically grown dendrites.
It wasn’t my first stage design with ropes, but the first in close collaboration with the workshop and technical department of the theatre. Using thousands of meters of jute and hemp. Feels.
And also the first time using rope juxtaposed and at the same time closely intertwined with 90 minutes poetic theoretical content, and developing it over the course of the evening.
The actors did a really good job. Telling an utopia involving plantoids. A kind of cyber biological connection between plants, insects and humans. Screaming of the shrinking population to safe our planet from dying (very roughly). Or for example other systems of ‘care’.
I much enjoyed searching for scenes/images, and developing a dance sequence with the actors. Opening up the more bodily dimension to them, and working through pain, muscle memory, nerves and endorphines. And, there was also the level of finding an approach together with Kevin, and get to know his work. Sometimes rough, often new but in the end productive I find. Yea, I’ d like to continue choreographing in this way, crossing over fields!

REGIE Kevin Rittberger BÜHNE Kevin Rittberger, Dasniya Sommer KOSTÜME Sandra Fink CHOREOGRAFIE Dasniya Sommer DRAMATURGIE Nora Khuon

Fabian Felix Dott Tabitha Frehner Anja Herden Torben Kessler Alban Mondschein

Big thanks to Vanessa Scarra and the supportive technical team of Ballhof 2!

Premier: February 21st, 2020
More dates: 3 + 19 + 29 März

Ethische Anarchie von Martin Hinze

Verstrickt in der Sinnlichkeit – Im Brüsseler Opernhaus La Monnaie inszeniert Romeo Castellucci einen ParsifalRichard Wagners, der Elemente traditioneller Aufführungspraxis neben experimentelle wie eine Bondage-Choreographie stellt, und polarisiert so das Publikum. Ein Erfahrungsbericht von Martin Hinze.

Nach drei Fanfarenstößen schließen die Platzanweiser die Türen, alle Lichter erlöschen, selbst die Anzeigen der Sitzreihen in den Gängen. Absolute Finsternis und Stille, man sieht buchstäblich nicht mehr die Hand vor Augen.
Einen Moment wird man mit diesem Sinnesentzug allein gelassen, bis, einstimmig und sehr leise, Klänge von Streichern mit der Ouvertüre das Bühnenweihfestspiel eröffnen. Langsam wie ein Sonnenaufgang erhellen Scheinwerfer auf der Bühne den dichtesten Wald, der je auf einer Opernbühne zu sehen war – ein Wald »schattig und ernst, doch nicht düster«, wie es im Libretto heißt. Der halb hinter dichtem Laubwerk verborgene Gurnemanz, Hüter des heiligen Gralswaldes, singt Weckrufe für seine noch schlummernden Knappen. Der Zuschauer reibt sich wie sie die Augen. In dieser Idylle schwebt und windet sich hoch in den Wipfeln und ungesehen eine große weiße (und echte) Python, das Wappentier der Produktion.
Noch bevor die Hüter des heiligen Haines davon singen können, bezeugt die Präsenz der Schlange, dass sein paradiesischer Frieden bedroht ist. Die Entfesselung dunkler Triebe und erotischer Obsessionen lauern hinter dem Wald in der Feste des vom Gralszirkel verstoßenen Klingsor, der sich der Zauberei geweiht hat.

DIE DÄMONEN ERWACHEN

Wegen Wagners extremem Antisemitismus, wie er ihn z. B. 1869 in seiner Publikation Das Judenthum in der Musik formuliert, ist sein Werk seit dem Nationalsozialismus nur noch schwer zu genießen. Damit provoziert er bereits im 19. Jahrhundert Widerspruch. Vor allem aber ist es zu seiner Zeit die permanente und explizite Thematisierung erotischer Begierde, die ihn zu
einem problematischen Autor macht.In Wagner and the erotic Impulse zeigt Laurence Dreyfus, wie Wagner in der Tiefe der musikalischen Struktur eine Sprache sinnlicher Liebe entwickelt. Dreyfus dokumentiert die verstörten Reaktionen zeitgenössischer Hörer, wie etwa von Gustave Stoeckel, einem zukünftigen Professor für Musik. Der berichtet nach der Premiere der Walküre 1876 von einer »ethischen Anarchie« durch das gefährliche »Wecken schlafender Leidenschaften«:

All aesthetics, theory and morals, are chased out of one; one’s breath is bated and the beating of the heart seems to stand still, the whole soul bewitched by an irresistible power…. During the performance, all that is sensual in human nature is wrought up to its wildest activity by the alluringly tempting music 1.

Die Brüsseler Version des Parsifal aktualisiert jene Kontroverse. Die Opernwelt schien nach den inszenierten Massenvergewaltigungen des Regisseurs Calixto Bieito – viel später als das Theaterpublikum – kaum noch moralische Tabus zu kennen. Doch selbst an der um moderne Bilder bemühte Oper La Monnaie gelingt es dem Parsifal Castelluccis auf subtilere Weise für kleine Eklats zu sorgen. Welche Inszenierung kann Zuschauer schon noch derart erregen, dass sie nach der Vorstellung in der Kälte am Künstlerausgang warten, um die Darstellerinnen strittiger Rollen schreiend und derb zu beleidigen?
Anstoß genommen wird am 2. Akt, der nach dem mächtigen Wald des 1. Akts in einem klinisch sterilen weißen Raum spielt. Dort erwartet Klingsor Parsifal als mächtigsten Helden und letzten Gegner. Der Kampf wird nicht mit den Waffen von Rittern geführt, sondern mit erotischer Begierde. Klingsors Schar von feenhaft schönen, lasziven Blumenmädchen versucht, Parsifal zu verführen, so dass dieser seine Keuschheit zugunsten – um den Begriff des 19. Jahrhunderts zu gebrauchen – der Sinnlichkeit aufgibt. So ist es bereits verschiedenen Rittern des Grals und schließlich ihrem König Amfortas ergangen. Weiter lesen