This year?s German Dance Platform (Tanzplatform Deutschland 2016) in Frankfurt am Main will open on Wednesday 2 March at 6 pm with a presentation of Collective Jumps. In this performance, whose concept and choreography were created by Isabelle Schad, 24 artists from both the Polish and German versions of the project meet on stage. More shows will be held on Thursday 3 March at 6 and 10 pm at the Bockenheimer Depot (Carlo-Schmid-Platz 1).
The piece by Berlin-based choreographer Isabelle Schad addresses community building in dance. Forms and practices of folk and group dances of different cultures are scrutinised and examined in the context of contemporary work policy and the dancing body. The piece sees dance as a political act, and the body as a “site of resistance”. Associations with the Occupy movement and protest dances (such as Turkish Halay performed in a big circle during demonstrations) are obvious. Collective Jumps is a protest dance in some respects, oscillating between protest, trance, and sensuality; and between form, dispersion, and abstraction.
The group?s body is made out of many.
We are exercising practices that have the potential to unite instead of individualize.
We are understanding this practices as a relationship to oneself and to one another, as a pathway. Those practices are biological ones, cellular ones, energetic ones.
We are looking at freedom in relation to form. To form that is made of and found by an inner process and its rhythms. Rhythm creates the form. Therefore there is multitude, multiplicity, subjectivity and variation, even within repetition. We are looking at freedom as the essence of happiness. We are looking for equality in movement and for the end of hierarchy between body parts. Relations between body parts are like relations between people within the group. We borrow floor, formation and holding patterns from other communal forms, such as folk dance, simultaneously getting rid of their codes for to make the less visible materialities underneath appear. We are relating resistance to questions of rhythm and protest to questions of organization and exercise.
We are resisting the esthetics of representation and those who promote it and this is definitely meant to be a political practice.
Could the creation of an infinite, unified, monstrous body possibly become a site of resistance?
***
“I’ve been dealing with the relations of form and content for a long time, asking where different forms come from, looking for their roots and beginnings. Because of their structure and the way they are rooted in culture, traditional folk and group dances seem perfect to investigate in relation to my own experience of the body in
Body-Mind-Centering ? and embryology. Just like a microscope, choreography enables a group to look into internal processes, spaces, and organs. The group becomes an organ in itself, while complex links between organic and cultural processes reveal themselves, become distinctive, take a concrete form. Importantly, the big group format stands in opposition to a small group format (solo, duet, trio?), so popular these days and forced by the financial situation of today’s choreography.
In this context, a group work becomes both an utopia and a protest, taking both actors and the audience on an intensely energetic journey.”
? Isabelle Schad*
“Through the flood of data and developments in technology, contemporaneity gives rise to new forms of community. Contemporary choreographers tackle them, asking about the essence of co-existence. The relationship between the individual and the society has always influenced art. Presently, the discourse is taken up in from a special angle: an autonomous subject is turned into a collective being by communications networks and abundance of files in the globalised world. Means of communication give rise to brand new forms of permanent ? and yet temporary ? community. Being singular has become an extraordinary state, while joining different communities ? be it Twitter or Facebook, whilst on an underground train or a plane ? is the rule. Choreography, as an arrangement of bodies in time and space, seems especially well suited to deal with the current questions of the form and ability of community.”
?? Esther Boldt*
Isabelle Schad is a Berlin-based choreographer, whose internationally presented shows are the result of in-depth bodily explorations (mainly based on Body-Mind Centering?) and research on the processes of bodily re-presentations. Her projects combine dance, performance, and visual arts. A turning point in Isabelle?s work was meeting visual artist and photographer Laurent Goldring. Since 2009, they have been creating the series Unturtled(s) (one of the performances was presented at the Old Brewery in 2010). She co-founded several projects/open collectives (Good Work, Praticable), which searched for ways of linking different practices and researches whilst questioning the modes of production. As an educator and choreographer, Isabelle works with HZT Berlin and conducts workshops all over the world (she has already been a teacher during the Alternative Dance Academy in March 2010). She is a co-organiser of the working space Wiesenburg-Halle in Berlin, and has been a Zen Shiatsu practitioner from this year.
For ticket information, please see the organiser?s website.
More on the German Dance Platform 2016:
http://www.tanzplattform2016.de/web/en/
The Featuring with Isabelle Schad takes place on Thursday 3/3 from 11.45 am – 12.30 pm at the festival centre at Mousonturm.
Free of charge, more information
concept, choreography: Isabelle Schad in collaboration with Laurent Goldring
performance, dance: Juan Corres Benito, Sonia Borkowicz, Frederike Doffin, Paulina Grochowska, Na?ma Ferré, Thomasz Foltyn, Jasmin Ihrac, Przemysław Kamiński, Roni Katz, Mathis Kleinschnittger, Inna Krasnoper, Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, Dorota Michalak, Benjamin Pohlig, Julia Rodriguez, Marta Romaszkan, Iza Szostak, Krystyna Szydłowska, Claudia Tomasi, Nir Vidan, Sunniva Vik?r Egenes, Natalia Wilk
theoretical backing: Gabriele Wittmann
technical direction, light design: Mehdi Toutain-Lopez
sound: Damir Simunovic
costumes: L?a Girod
light: Benni Schroeter
light objects: Elias Macke
production manager: Heiko Schramm
rehearsal assistent: Claudia Tomasi
assistent: Monica Duncan
A Production by Isabelle Schad in coproduction with HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Governing Mayor of Berlin ? Senate Chancellery ? Cultural Affairs. In cooperation with Goethe Institute Nigeria, Goethe Institute Warsaw, Art Stations Foundation Poznan, Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin (HZT). Supported by Wiesen55 e.V. The guest performance is supported by the Goethe Institute Warsaw.
photos ? Isabelle Schad after collaboration with Laurent Goldring, photo by Jakub Wittchen for Art Stations Foundation
The Featuring meeting with Isabelle Schad will be held on Thursday 3 March from 11.45 am?12.30 pm at the festival centre in Mousonturm theatre.
10.00?10.45 ? Gintersdorfer/Klaßen
10.55?11.40 ? Billinger & Schulz
11.45?12.30 ? Isabelle Schad