Karol Tymiński „This is a musical”. Photo: Patrycja Płanik.
The events of the final two days (30 September ? 1 October) of the 14th Body/Mind Festival will be hosted by the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw. On Wednesday, 30 September (7 pm) the Body/Mind Foundation will present Zimmerfrei Company‘s project Family Affair (6 pm). The Italian public art collective will present a piece exploring the theme of family. To start with, they have amassed concepts related to family as a model of human relationships in today’s societies, as seen by Europeans. The project will be staged in eight European cities in collaboration with the partners of the Open Latitudes network and in association with the European Union’s Culture Programme.
At 8 pm the festival will present a collective performance Collective Jumps featuring Polish dancers. Berlin-based choreographer Isabelle Schad offers insight into the body as the location of resistance and into dance as a political act, a meeting point and a sensual melting pot of social processes and traditions. It is not only a medium for participation in the public life, but also the space for oppression and a magical tool to transgress it all the same. Thus the body gains a special kind of presence. Shad?s proposal is a form of summary, but also an expression of dissent against treating the social performance as an obvious given devoid of any aesthetic consequences.
Treating the contemporary urban movements, protests, public demonstrations and happenings as a form of community building physical movement means they may be treated as modern folk dance. Dance as a social atavism, however, needs to include a political context these days. The mass culture treats bodies as quantitative rather than qualitative items. Still, the essence of getting together is to be able to speak with one voice. What is then the expression of multiple bodies? Can a group chaos be used to structure a piece? And can a mechanism transform into an organism? 18 dancers utilising the Body-Mind Centering method ? sensing one another?s intent and reacting to others? proposals ? transform a mob into a single communal body. The dancers interweave using simple, trance-like figures, with boundaries between them slowly blending. The spectator becomes a participant of the transformation going from single moves to powerful machinery.
concept, choreography: Isabelle Schad in collaboration with Laurent Goldringiem
choreographer?s assistant: Lea Moro
performance: Magda Bartczak, Sonia Borkowicz, Barbara Bujakowska, Halina Chmielarz, Tomasz Foltyn, Paulina Grochowska, Ewa Hubar, Magdalena Jędra, Aniela Kokosza, Irena Lipińska, Jakub Margosiak, Dorota Michalak, Gosia Mielech, Janusz Orlik, Marta Romaszkan, Iza Szostak, Krystyna Szydłowska, Ula Zerek
sound, composition: Patryk Lichota
lighting: Łukasz Kędzierski
production: Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk
co-production: Goethe-Institut w Warszawie
support: Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
premiere: 2014, Poznań
Duration: 60 minutes
www.cialoumysl.pl/en/actions-events/body-mind-festival/2015/performances/collective-jumps
Isabelle Schad is a choreographer from Berlin. Presented all over the world, her performances are a result of bodily explorations (mainly based on Body-Mind Centering practice) as well as research on bodily representation processes. The projects tend to interface dance, performance and visual arts. Isebelle Shad?s meeting with Laurent Golring, a visual artist and photographer, has been important for her work, too. Since 2009 the couple has put out a series of performances titled Unturtled(s). Isabelle has participated in multiple artistic collectives (Good Work, Praticable). As a teacher and choreographer she works with the Berlin HZT college, with her workshops scattered all around the globe (in March 2010 she lectured at the Alternative Dance Academy). Currently, the artist co-creates the Wiesenburg-Halle creative space in Berlin, at the same time studying and practicing Zen Shiatsu.
For more information visit the 14th Body/Mind Festival website
