ACTIONS |
The Festival Projects (alphabetical order, by the artist’s names): Most of the projects are bilingual, exceptions indicated.
Download information about the actions and projects: ———— AV Labor HGB (DE) Fabián Barba (EC) Ansgar Weber/ Roland Beer (DE) Gustavo Ciríaco /Andrea Sonnberger (BR/AT) Paul Gazzola (AU/DE) Camilla Graff Junior (DK/FR) Hermann Heisig (DE) hello!earth (DK) Heike Hennig (DE) Georg Hobmeier (AT) Anna Hoetjes (NL) Miriam Horwitz (DE) internil (DE) Projekt Kaufhaus Joske (DE) Thomas Lehmen (DE ) LIGNA (DE) Dani Lima (BR) Lukas Matthaei (DE) Molly and Me (DK/UK) Irina Pauls (DE) Paul Plamper (DE) plan b (UK/DE) random people (UK/DE) raum4 – netzwerk für künstlerische alltagsbewältigung (DE) Katrin Richter, Spinnwerk (DE) Britt Schlehahn (DE) Chris Standfest (AT) Twio-X e.V. (DE) Doris Uhlich (AT) urban col(laboratory) Helen Stratford & Diana Wesser (UK/DE) Bertram Weisshaar (DE) Britta Wirthmüller/Petra Zanki
ACTIONSandPROJECTS (pdf, 144 KB)
Promenade — hommage to André Cadere (1943–1978)
A gentle audio walk to the Richard-Wagner-Hain, produced by the Audiovisual Lab of the HGB (Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst Leipzig). An acoustic aquarelle of the surrounding reality with its changing qualities of synchronicity and a-synchronicity. Following in the tracks of André Cadere the listeners may come closer to a child-like state of innocence, without the normal pressure to move forward on a particular purpose. Staging various modes of listening, the audiowalk joyfully switches between fiction and reality.
The Audiovisual Laboratory of the Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst Leipzig is a platform for arts and sciences, designed to combine an extensive education in traditional craftsmanship and an acquaintance with aesthetics and ‘New Technologies’.
Memories we´ve never had
A visit to the former apartment and working space of German expressionist dancer Mary Wigman who lived in Leipzig from 1943 to 1949. Wigman – Leipzig – the 1940’s. We’ve seen none of it. We can walk down these streets. We can step into these buildings. We can see it all. But no, we will have seen none of it. To visit Leipzig as a place populated by ghosts. Wigman as one of them – War as one of them – History as one of them – Each of us as one of them.
A Mary Wigman Dance Evening
In a performance at Schaubühne Lindenfels Fabián Barba will show a ‚reconstructed‘ soirée with dances from Mary Wigman, as it may have taken place in the thirties.
Fabián Barba (*1982) studied in Quito and at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. During the last years he did extensive research on the life and work of Mary Wigman. With Tuur Marinus and Marisa Cabal he created the performance “keeping busy keeping still”.
Margin and Centre. A Literary Walk
On a guided walk from the city centre to Richard-Wagner-Hain, literary life stories of Leipzig will be told, at particular places, sometimes marked by monuments. The stories itself will be reflections of the relationship between centre and margin: The poet between the centre – with recognition and success – and at the margins – in a sense of oblivion or even condemnation.
Language: German
Roland Beer (* 1969) is a freelancing cityplanner and photographer. Ansgar Weber (* 1968), after doing studies in romance, philosophy, german language and literature in Würzburg, Osnabrück and Angers (FR), works as an editor for print media, online media and radio. In 2004 he opened the Seitenblick bookstore at the Lindenauer Markt.
“Aqui enquanto caminhamos”/”Here whilst we walk”
The artists Andrea Sonnberger and Gustavo Ciríaco invite the audience for an urban walk. Inspired by a long tradition that links walking to the production of thoughts and perceptions, the two performers start a silent journey through the city. A constantly changing contact with a space that is moved and moves itself.
Andrea Sonnberger from Austria got her education as a dancer in Vienna and Munich and since 1996 does her own choreographies. The work of Brazilian dancer Gustavo Ciríaco is focused on questions of perception, presence and discourse.
The Production of Suspicious Bodies (Workshop Presentation)
The project explores how body actions and codes of behavior constitute suspicious activity. Operating within the specificity of Leipzig the participants will be invited to work on the context that may be considered as suspicious, investigating the unseen rules that dictate and control spaces/places as they negotiate the issues of public control and privacy.
Paul Gazzola works within a wide array of performing and visual arts. He created performances, choreographies, set designs and multimedia installations for theatre stages, galleries and site-specific activities.
IN AND WITH (me)
Women from Leipzig are invited into the bed of the performance artist Mona Motel to tell their story. The bed is to be found in different areas of the city during the festival, for 3 hours at each spot. Some women will be contacted spontaneously, others are invited to make an appointment. Each of them is asked to bring an object that is related to her story and later may become part of the installation. At the final night in the Schaubühne Lindenfels the collected material of the ‘Leipziger Frauen’ will be presented and put into perspective.
Camilla Graff Junior studied theatre and contemporary dance in Copenhagen, New York and Paris and participated in more than 20 international projects. Since 2002 she works with her own project Giraff Graff, combining theatre and site-specific performances.
KAUFHAUS URY
A performance installation at the location of former Jewish department store Ury, today part of the central wasteland known as Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz. The floor plan of the building will be reconstructed on site, with a confrontation of past and present. KAUFHAUS URY imagines the forgotten movements in a space to be remembered: strolling through elevators that do not exist anymore, passing by imaginary stations: a porter’s lodge, refreshment rooms, main portals, special offers, shop windows, swing doors.
With Hermann Heisig and Anne Zacho Søgaard
Berlin-based dancer and choreographer Hermann Heisig (*1981) received his education at the Etage Berlin and CCN Montpellier. He collaborated for several productions with Diana Wesser, Nir de Volff, Marina Quesada, Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Martin Nachbar and others.
Instant Adventures in Daily Life (provided by SMS)
You are invited to a playful study of routines, meetings and off track experiences on sites and places of everyday-life. Perceptions of and relations to spaces will be newly defined; your very own adventure in the heart of the city; a voyage into the frictions and gaps of a place – now and then.
A mobile phone with German number/SIM-card is required (information at the festival office).
Language: English
hello!earth (Vera Maeder/Jacob Langaa-Sennek) create site-specific performances and social interventions. The results of these long-time studies and processes are presented on stage, in form of installations and hybrid forms of various kinds.
Mass Contact Jam. Dance Theatre for all Generations to Take Part
Following the American tradition of contact improvisation Heike Henning will lead a mass-contact-jam in a green area of the city (Sachsen-Brücke/Clara-Zetkin-Park) – a dance form focused on taking up weight, giving off weight, a game between flying, falling, rolling over the ground. A joyful warm-up at the beginning, gentle body work at the end.
Heike Henning from Leipzig studied dance, choreography and body-mind centering. Her autobiographical piece “Zeit – tanzen seit 1927″ was filmed and broadcasted on ARTE. In 2009 the Neues Museum Berlin was inaugurated with her choreography “Timeless”.
Area. Choreographic Operations for Urban Space
Area is a performance in urban space for four dancers. Bodies acting on random-instructions by doing well-defined moves, trigger a confrontation of the various habits that can be observed in urban landscapes. Area develops from predefined modular moves by navigating the performers through the city. The choreography´s algorithmic patterns write over the topography and architecture of urban space. Spectators have to follow the group as it is permanently moving forward, knowing about the source of these actions.
With: Jule Flierl, Georg Hobmeier, Tommy Noonan and Deepak K. Shivasvamy
Georg Hobmeier studied acting and contemporary dance in Salzburg, Utrecht and Amsterdam. Since 2001 he works as a performer and choreographer. For his work he was granted with a number of awards and scholarships.
Single Mass Performance
Anna Hoetjes shows her “Single Mass Performance”, based on women´s exercises during the German Festival of Gymnastics and Sports in Leipzig 1977. By confronting herself as an individual with the mass, she examines the effects of mass choreographies, but also her own role in the society of today. The performance is part of a larger project dealing with the German Festival of Gymnastics and Sports. Another part is the documentary video piece “Es war hart / Es müsste es wieder geben” that will be shown at the festival too.
Anna Hoetjes (*1984) studied at Rietveld-Adademy Amsterdam, Cooper Union School of Arts New York and UdK Berlin (University of the Arts Berlin). Currently she´s a master class student at the Dutch Art Institute Amsterdam and has a residency at the Leipzig International Art Program.
“Ich bin der Herr. Ich bin ein Mensch. Ich bin Christus.“ The Nijinsky Project
The project is divided in three parts: the film that was produced on the site of the old Trade Faire Halls for a period of one year; a live performance assembled from body work and language material that have been examined in the making the movie; and a documentation of this performance. The aim is to find an approach to Nijinsky as a person on the threshold of mental disease, by using a third medium, the camera.
With Miriam Horwitz, Paul Matzke and Claire Vivianne Sobottke, Video: Daniel Hengst.
Miriam Horwitz (*1984) currently studies directing at the Berlin Academy for Acting and Directing “Ernst Busch”. She did a comprehensive research on the diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky. The results will presumably be published at the Inkonst Art Centre Malmö in late 2010.
1. Beiseite Gesprochenes. Eine Warenhauselegie/ 2. Das Vorgehen in der Landschaft
A polyphonic drifting, crossing various conceptions of urban development, wastelands, shopping worlds and some remainders of the future. Part 1: City West. Perambulations of purlieus, two-third-absences, reviews of past and future visual defects, channeling of the voices of mayors and other experiences of loss. Part 2: Harbour of Lindenau. A sturdy pair of shoes recommended.
With Melanie Schmidli, Arne Vogelgesang, Markus Wagner and Christoph Wirth.
Language: German
Since 2005 the members of the internil – association for research on social composition are working with a variety of basic materials such as architecture, graffiti, music, video, television and literature. Founded in Vienna they are now active mainly in Leipzig.
Guided Tours to the Former Department Store Joske and its Environment
In Summer 2008 artists Till Gathmann, Fabian Reimann, Cindy Schmiedichen and Rebecca Wilton initiated project Kaufhaus Joske in the rooms of a former Jewish department store in Leipzig-Plagwitz. The project is meant to be a place for the arts with a special interest in the mediation and representation of history. Remainders of some wall inscriptions, hardly to detect, were the starting point for a comprehensive investigation in the history of this department store, leading to various artistic projects and strategies.
Language: German
The visual artist Cindy Schmiedichen (*1977), the photographer Rebecca Wilton (*1979), the typographer Till Gathmann (*1977) and the artist Fabian Reimann (*1975) still are or have been art students at the Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst Leipzig (HGB).
Sprenggänge
The history of Leipzig is full of buildings that were blown up for various reasons, replaced by new buildings, replaced by permanent wastelands or sometimes even rebuilded. Some of the existing buildings are discussed to be detonated, too. Future economic, political or aesthetic concerns may result in further explosive demolitions. What to do with the voids? During this walk everybody is invited to turn found materials into utopian pieces of art. Several stops will be made at certain buildings. A blaster will explain, who these buildings could be demolished in a professional manner, too.
Thomas Lehmen is a freelancing choreographer, dancer and trainer. He studied at the School for New Dance Developement in Amsterdam. Since 1990 he lives in Berlin. He teaches at schools in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin or Reikjavik. His work is partly based on choreographic systems, aiming for individual creative processes.
The Interruption. A Dialogue with Laban
In the 1920s Rudolf von Laban founded movement choirs all over Germany. Their performances were planned as celebrations for everyone to take part. After 1933 he described the movement choir as an expression of Germany´s rebirth in the spirit of National Socialism. Starting with Laban´s choreography “Vom Tauwind und der neuen Freude”, designed for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games of 1936, “The Interruption” will examine the relations between body, community, sports and the public sphere of a performance.
The LIGNA group (Ole Frahm, Michael Hüners, Torsten Michaelsen) was founded in 1997. It has achieved its aim, the perforation of borders between performers and spectators, many times already, for example with the “Radioballett” and the performance “Der Neue Mensch”, which will take place at the opening night of the Festival, 24 June, from 7.30p.m. at Centraltheater.
Choreography for Pavements, Pedestrians and Pigeons (Workshop Presentation)
The workshop will be focused on movement improvisations and real time compositions in public spaces. Based on an array of pre-exercised movement patterns, spontaneous collective interventions will be made, interacting with pedestrians and urban architecture and responding to unforeseen situations.
Dani Lima is a dancer, performer and choreographer. In 1997 she founded her own company in Brazil and realized many international workshops and performances. Her main topics are identity, memory and perception – an “everyday life body poetics”.
FAKING THE REAL – Performative Panoramas (Workshop Presentation)
The workshop is based on the idea of the panoramas – building with a 360-degree picture showing remote places or historical events – visual surround-illusions, fake experiences. One of these buildings once existed at an inner-city square of Leipzig. It was a famous restaurant, where the visitors had their dinners while facing great historical events. The workshop will examine certain spots of the city and generate “performative panoramas” wich will be presented during the festival.
Various (discourse) productions and installations were created since 2000 under the label matthaei & konsorten. The theatrical productions and installations of director Lukas Matthaei are mostly positioned in public spaces, making residents and pedestrians part of the story. The specificity of the place with its abstract social and historical lines and architectural conditions therefore plays an important role.
Singing Leipzig
MOLLY AND ME will travel from Copenhagen and London to make their own and very personal songs about Leipzig. Dressed in their unique troubadour costumes they will venture into the city every day to sing together, establish melodies and make small rhythmic dances as a way to discover the city. Constantly present in the urban space they will collect material for their songs. You will also find them on the daily locations of the play! LEIPZIG Festival. At the Matinee on Sunday they will perform their Leipzig songs.
Molly Haslund and Catherine Hoffmann live and work in London, Glasgow and Copenhagen. Since 2007 they have consequently developed the spontaneous production of music with ukulele and percussion into a sophisticated form of research, reflection and presentation.
Places, Memories and Dancing
Starting point are the biographies of women from Leipzig, closely connected to certain places of the city. The women return to these places that had a strong influence on their lives. The places have changed, the buildings have different functions, but still they are filled with the memories and perceptions of the women. This is the basic material for the performance, developed by Irina Pauls with a group of senior dancers, to present these memories in their corporeality.
Language: German
Irina Pauls studied at the Palucca School Dresden and the Theater Academy “Hans Otto” in Leipzig. Since then she created more than 40 dance pieces. At present she is the artistic director of the “Company” and the Company “D.C. Dilligence” in Leipzig.
RUHE 1
A restaurant in a city. All the tables are occupied. People are chatting, arguing, laughing. Suddenly something happens outside on the street, everybody in the restaurant falls silent. One should intervene, one should help. It´s a moment of silence, where everything is possible: intervention and distance. Absolute silence. Will anybody stand up and do something? In his radio play Paul Plamper examines this sudden silence as a political issue. The apparently unrelated group of people formes into a community that takes a decision.
Language: German
Paul Plamper is a theatre director and author of radio plays. He collaborated with Martin Wuttke at the Berliner Ensemble (“Artaud…”) and Heiner Müller’s “Der Auftrag” (“The Mission”) to Istanbul. Since 2005 he curates the radio play section at the HAU Berlin. His label: www.hoerspielpark.de
The Monday Walks
With the Monday Walks, plan b reveal a unique aspect of Montagsdemos in Leipzig 1989. In cooperation with students of the University and using GPS technology, they will visualize the journeys of some of the people that attended the demonstrations. A second outcome of this work will be a collective audio walk, retracing the demonstration route through the city, following the Ring Avenue to the former Stasi headquarters. The project will trigger the imagination of the participants about how urban spaces can be imagined as places of political action again.
plan B are Sophia New and Daniel Belasco Rogers. Since 2002 they produced together various installations, theoretical works, long-time performances, media projects, walks and theatre plays.
Loop
During the entire festival random people will do a long durational run on the Ring Avenue, focusing not so much on velocity but on continuity. Starting on June 24, 2.00 p.m., at least one person wearing a tracksuit will permanently run along the avenue, circling around the city centre. To fulfill their task, they will need helpers to accompany them or to take over parts of the run on their own. In return for their commitment they will receive the Random People Sports Badge.
random people were founded in 2007 by Daniel Ladnar and Esther Pilkington. They are based in Aberystwyth, Wales, where they develop artistic concepts for their performances to be realized in Austria, Germany and other countries as well.
„small town blues“from the “Heimatforschung & Reminiszenz” series.
We show slides from home, to remember, to rediscover life stories and spaces. “small town blues“ is ‘storytelling theatre’ and a slide show. And the city looks completely different, perspectives and forgotten memories are coming back to life. „small town blues“ is a reminiscence of the disappeared multi-storey buildings at the Brühl and the „homeland of modernity “. „small town blues“ is a concept and idea by Ulrich Hüni. Language: German
„raum4“ is a network for artistic research, a meeting point for questions, observations and irritations. We are instigators, producers and a base for intercultural projects that contribute to the exploration, description and stimulation of a sometimes strange environment.
“The Piependorfers return”. A Guided Tour at the Baumwollspinnerei (cotton mill)
“The Piependorfer natives lived like a big family. No-one was wealthier or poorer than another. They procreated, scuffled and were tanked up with alcohol from Friday to Sunday. The area was notorious in Leipzig and therefore rather avoided.” (from a chronicle) The Spinnwerker group has searched for evidences in the environment. They found people and places, history and stories.
Language: German
Katrin Richter (*1970) realized numerous projects in theatre pedagogy and youth theater and is the director of the “Spinnwerk” as part of Schauspiel Leipzig. Beside this she is a well known actor and comedian on stage and television.
Melody and Rhythm – A Walk to Landscape, Politics and Sports
The space between the inner city and the Elster river tidal basin offers enough space for projections of all kinds. In this area ideological concepts, tree populations and the monumental remainders of various societies are crossing each other. More hidden than obvious the interactions of movement, history and space can be experienced. The walk will follow this unique rhythm, starting at Centraltheater, leading to the Zentral Stadium and the buildings of the former German Academy for Body Culture, finally reaching a riverside park called Richard-Wagner-Hain.
Language: German
Britt Schlehahn (*1972) from Leipzig is working in the field of cultural studies and art history. Since 2000 she holds a scholarship in the research group “Mechanization and Society” at the University of Leipzig. Her research focuses on cultural and body history of the 18th-20th century.
“Völker. Schlachten. Sprechen” Movement in Sound – a lecture/performance
Can the “Monument of the Battle of the Nations” be a place, where individual bodies and singular gestures actively contrast the pathetic spirit of death cult, power and
space of the monument? Students will temporarily turn it into a space for lecture and movement, lamentation and remembrance, democracy, community and “Forgiveness” (Jacques Derrida), using texts and themes of Aischylos, Kleist, Müller, Derrida et al.
Chris Standfest (*1963) does theoretical work in the fields of German language and literary studies, philosophy, gender studies and political activism, but has also actively participated as a performer in many projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Bodies – Borders – Cityscapes. Rediscover the World with Parkour
In Leipzig too there are traceurs [fr. for "the one who draws a line"], people mastering any kind of obstacle. Their dream: to establish individual ways of movement in public space, to deny the usual regulations and run the blockade of walls. You will be invited to join a creative self-experience in parkouring or simply to watch. Surrounded by the historical architecture of the old Trade Fair new ways of moving will be developed, using techniques from Parkour, Free-Running and Tricking.
Twio X e.V. from Leipzig was founded in 2006. Soon there was a focus on the Parkour training methods of its inventor David Belle. Twio X has organized many Parkour projects and events.
Lipsi Swan
On June 27, a swan will nest in Leipzig. Starting point of his performance will be “The Dying Swan”, a solo dance by Anna Pavlova from 1905. The up and down of the swan, the weight of his flaps and his resistance against decline will find a new form: The dying swan will be transferred into the 21st century, linked to the movements of the presence – up and down, rising and declining, crashing, bursting, booming. For his performance in Leipzig the swan will also make use of the Lipsi-Dance, propagated by the socialist government of the GDR as an official dance step.
Doris Uhlich from Vienna is a choreographer, dancer and dance teacher. Beside many scholarships, residencies, lectures and coachings she performs herself in the theatercombinat Vienna and since 2006 directs her own projects (“und”, SPITZE”, “mehr als genug”, “Johannen”).
Walking through Walls. Audio walk-for-one through the ‘Centraltheater’ building Leipzig
How are places produced? What defines their boundaries? And what gestures and routines happen after dark and out of sight to reconstruct these places? Take a unique late-night walk with urban (col)laboratory through the walls of the Centraltheater Leipzig to explore what happens when the people behind these hidden gestures and routines – people who are normally invisible to audiences – show up to haunt the places they reconstruct every day.
Language: German
urban (col)laboratory are architect Helen Stratford (Cambridgeshire, UK) and multimedia- and performance-artist Diana Wesser (Leipzig). Together they complete extensive research in the rhythms and routines by which people negotiate, define and produce everyday spaces.
Promenadology @ Ring Avenue Leipzig
The Ring Avenue of Leipzig traces the course of the former city fortifications that were once controlling every movement between the city and the countryside. Today the ring still has a separating effect, as a broad street with a lot of traffic by cars and trams. The project examines everyday patterns of movement in this traditional in-between space. In the perspective of a “Promenadology” this space will be reflected differently. A walk with Bertram Weisshaar will playfully follow new lines of moving, aiming to make an alternative reality visible.
Language: German
Bertram Weisshaar lives in Leipzig since 2001. He is a photographer and landscape architect and, since 1996, freelance artist and researcher in walking. He did many walks and further projects in the contexts of urban development and visual arts.
The Silent Walk
The Silent Walk by the artists Britta Wirthmüller and Petra Zanki is a guided tour through Leipzig’s “Waldstraßenviertel“, where the guides will remain completely silent. By choreographing the directions, the speed of walking and the gaze of the audience, the artists progressively reveal the hidden story of the city, while the images, sounds and situations witnessed by the audience merge into a kaleidoscope of memories, reminiscences and associations.
Britta Wirthmüller (*1981) from Berlin received her education at the Palucca-School Dresden. Petra Zanki (*1977) was born in Split (Croatia) and studied in Paris. Beside her work as a performer and choreographer she writes articles for a number of magazines.