A quick note to say I’m not teaching Yoga + Shibari classes in Berlin right now. I’ll announce upcoming classes & workshops here and on my mailing list.
Shibari
PAF – Performance with Virginia
Quick posting between cities.. I had a week off from filming the ‘Affenkönig’ in the Provence and took the train north to PAF (Performance Art Forum) in St. Erme, North France. A beautiful train ride through the country :)
I heard many good things about this place and for a while wanted to spend time in a sort of hippy artistic place, focussing on performance research and easy community living. PAF is more than that!
Almost by chance I met Virginia Barratt, a so dear friend of mine, and writer from Australia.
We hadn’t seen for a while, and when I arrived she sat in the garden of the old women’s monastery, as if waiting for me ;)
Spontaneously we wanted to do something something.. Throwing together ideas around ballet, rope and text,
(she currently writes her PhD on ‘PANIC’ – wow & wuff). On my last day we showed what we had in an old chapel.
Festival: Zirkus des Fortschritts – das Helmi
Nach Berlin und Bremen geht der Zirkus des Fortschritts in die dritte Runde. Vom 26.8. – 6.9. zieht die Helmi-Truppe durch die Berner Innenstadt und freut sich auf das bunte Treiben im dortigen Schlachthaus.
Hier einige Momente aus Bremen: Pilzballett, creating the yellow bastard, Boxkampf, Froschkönig, SolameMusicShow, Dauerregen, Sin City & Bondage auf dem Goetheplatz ;)
Die Große Mysterien Show – Frostfamilie
Letztes Wochenende..ein Rausch, ein tolles Fest, zehn mal spielen mit der Frostfamilie auf dem Schaubudenfestival in Dresden. Spannende und glückliche Performancebegegnungen mit Marie aka Rotkäppchenmän, Felix aka Schlechtmän, Otto aka Sphinxmän, Cora Frost aka Gutmän und ich war Ballerinamän ;) Zuletzt, um Mitternacht schwammen wir die Überraschungsperformance im Stadtbad.
Performance: Die Große Mysterien Show – Cora Frost
Die Frostfamilie hat mich adoptiert! Vom 16 – 18 Juli spielen wir auf dem Schaubudenfestival in Dresden.
Die große Mysterienschau
Sie ist wieder dabei, die Frostfamilie, die ihren Karren wieder gepackt hat! Wohin fahren sie, woher kommen sie, niemand weiß es so recht. Sie sind die Guerilleras auf der großen Wiese der Unterhaltung. Traktorist Otto führt den Zug wieder an. Was wissen wir schon über die Geheimnisse des Universums? Über verirrte Herden von Schneeflocken, die glitzernd durchs All treiben? Was wissen wir über die Kriege zwischen den Glockenblumen und deren Sanftheit? Wir sind in einer Schlacht, die unsere ist, gegen den Sternenstaub von Jahrmillionen Jahren, aus dem wir selber sind. Aus Diamanten und Rohstoffen. Mensch Leute! Macht die Augen auf! Überall die Schönheit!! Wir lieben euch. Was bleibt uns sonst noch. Seid klug, mutig und besucht uns. Tretet ein!
Jeder sollte eine Frostfamilie haben!
die Frostfamilie 2015
diesmal mit
meiner Cousine, der schönen Dasniya Merhaba aus den endlosen brodelnden Tulpengärten Konstantinopels
mit der einsamen Marie, aus den Kaskadenwasserfällen Halles in die Rufe der Kraniche geboren, eine meiner zahllosen verschollenen Nichten
mit meinem äußerst attraktiven Vetter Otto, Traktorist, Musizist, Liebhaber von fast allem und allen
und DEM ZYKLOPEN
Performing Shibari Express @ UNITHEA #18
Performing at UNITHEA Festival in Frankfurth Oder at Theater des Lachens yesturday. This time with Schnucki das Rennpferd.
The audience was sitting on stage, close by, in a ritualistic way. I guess the challenge of this Shibari Express episode was to present the ‘male’ as the object of lust (is this correct English?;)
Exposing and exploring him/the ‘male’ body and its feminine side. Doing that in a floor work situation was more challenging than we thought. The last two gigs with Schnucki being suspended, overwrite a lot of the sensitive moments, and silent details. Its more spectacle. ‘But this one dealt with intimicy in a very different way’, we said, when the Polish journalist asking us later, while we were still pulling the ropes of the body.
UNITHEA is a German-Polish Theatre Festival, held in Frankfurth Oder, Edition #18. So the topic was somewhat becoming adult.
The folowing three hour workshop was very. 8 students did rope work for the first time, and there was a lot of laughing and chatting while step by step learning the technique.
Here some performance moments.
Yoga Shibari Workshop Berlin June 30. 2015
Hours: 7-11 pm
Costs: 30 Euro per person (social price 20 Euro)
At Teatris/Alte Kantine or in our ‘Mini- Dojo’. Both locations are at
Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt in Wedding. Staircase b/c, Uferstraße 8-11, 13357 Berlin
U8 Pankstr/U9 Osloerstr
Please call when you are in the court yard, in case you don’t find it, or the door is locked:
+ 49 174 393 70 49.
PLEASE REGISTER BEFOREHAND, THAN WE SEND YOU THE DETAILS!
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: English + GERMAN
NEWS: Costs & program of the evening have has changed, please read below.
Roughly the schedule will be this:
19 – 20 h yoga
20 – 20.30 pause
20.30 – 22 shibari/technical input
22- 23 h open space to play and exchange ideas or just watching.
Plus we will go outdoors in the summer, or do experimental specials like
ropes & painting etc.
Our performance baby Shibari Express is growing, and we want to focus more on performance ideas as part of the workshop, than on basic rope technique. That means YOU – the participants who like – are invited to bring your ideas to the workshop. You could for example bring an instrument, books, pots or other devices, which you always have wanted to combine with rope work. (Sounds more challenging than it is :).
There will always be a small team or free floating people to stage/with, unless you want to make a solo :) This is an experiment to involve poetic/thatrical thoughts around rope work, and to have an open space situation to try out ideas.
Podcast: Ropes & Roles
Ebba, Tova & Gabriel host a conversation with the Berlin-based choreographers Dasniya Sommer and Frances d’Ath, that visited Nyxxx & KokoroTwo & Rökridån for a working residency the 28th of April-4th of May in 2015. When the conversation starts, we have just participated in a shibari yoga class guided by Dasniya. From this point of reference, we go on to discuss among many other things exoskeletons, religious metaphors and the invention of rope as a parallel to the invention of the wheel. Listen to the podcast here
Yoga Shibari Workshop Berlin June 2nd 2015 + News
Attention: there is no Y/S in May the next workshop will be on Jun 2nd!!!
Hours: 7-11 pm
Costs: 30 Euro per person (social price 20 Euro)
At Teatris/Alte Kantine or in our ‘Mini- Dojo’. Both locations are at
Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt in Wedding. Staircase b/c, Uferstraße 8-11, 13357 Berlin
U8 Pankstr/U9 Osloerstr
Please call when you are in the court yard, in case you don’t find it, or the door is locked:
+ 49 174 393 70 49.
PLEASE REGISTER BEFOREHAND, THAN WE SEND YOU THE DETAILS!
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: English + GERMAN
NEWS:
Due to an event in the Alte Kantine I unfortunately have to cancel the Yoga/Shibari workshop in May, I am sorry for that, but we will catch up with ropes on June 2nd, 2015!
I am looking much forward too it, and also want to use this mail to announce some changes: We will shorten, the duration of the workshop. It will now take place from 7 – 10 pm, three hours! So that there is more space for experimenting and play until 11 pm, or just more light afterwards.
Since our performance baby Shibari Express is growing, we want to focus more performance ideas as part of the workshop, than on basic rope technique. That means YOU – the participants who like – are invited to bring your ideas to the workshop. You could for example bring an instrument, books, pots or other devices, which you always have wanted to combine with rope work. (Sounds more challenging than it is :).
There will always be a small team or free floating people to stage/play with, unless you want to make a solo :). This is an experiment to involve poetic/theatrical thoughts around rope work, and to have an open space situation to try out ideas…
So yea, ..please kick start your body–brain-dreams, bring ropes, good vibes and a collective snack.
Another change concerning the costs: for the whole evening yoga, shibari & open space it will be 30 Euro. Single parts of the evening such as only yoga (10 €) or shibari + open space (20 €). If this is not feasible for you at all please let us know! Its mainly about fun but we also need to cover rent etc.
Many thanks for Your understanding!
Grosse bisoux and greetings,
Shibari Express
Shibari Express in Stockholm
After a full week of workshops and rehearsals at the NYXXX collective at Rökridån, Frances and I had worked on a couple of new performance ideas with ropes and with masks. This is a slightly new enterprise I started in recent performances. Exploring the theatricality using latex masks. There is a distinct perception of the material and the combination with domestic settings and quotidian actions, which I think are worth investigating. The way we used them, they generated a sort of anthropomorphic quality in the movement and the reading of animal relationships. It was not about animal play though. They are also an interesting tool to generate choreography from a different mode of body awarness, because of the slight deprivation of either the eye sight, or the hearing ability. How do we move, dance if these primary senses for orientation are reduced? How do we eat, bike, wait and so on.
Two weeks ago I taught a workshop at Meg Stuarts/Damaged Goods new production ‘Until Our Hearts Stop’, dealing with topics around intimicy. After a three hour warm up, they got the masks to improvise, and most dancers were in one or the other way flashed or inspired. Mostly I think they experienced a certain freedom and strangeness in motoric impulses. Allowing a strange way to move and a different sense for timing. Something shifts when the cat, pig or the dog become personalities. When they encounter or make human decisions. We will continue this research! Here are a couple sweet moments from the performance.
