Warsaw: 2 weekend performances and 1 installation at the Body/Mind Festival

This weekend, the Body/Mind Festival will treat its audiences to three events held at Teatr Studio. Last year?s edition of the Festival hosted a duo of Portuguese artists (Ana Borralho & Jo?oGalante), who presented their ATLAS Warszawa, a piece referring to the mythological god Atlas. This year, the organizers hope to enkindle revolutionary energy through another figure in the ancient pantheon, namely Hermaphroditus. Sexy MF is a performance installation questioning the social gender of men and women, artists and spectators. The makeup worn by the artists attributes it with features very distant from their bodies, disrupting the standardised gaze. In order to escape the illusion, the audience must decide what, and who, they see in front of them. Performers have been selected in the course of workshops held in Warsaw. Visitors may see the installation on Saturday, 26 September between 7pm and 10 pm.

On Saturday and Sunday (8pm and 4 pm respectively), the Festival will also feature presentations of David Weber-Krebs?s Tonight, lights out, in which the artists creates an installation using light-bulbs, each of which will be contributed by individual spectators. Led by minor impulses, the light-bulb owners will decide when (and if) to turn them on. Treated literally, the metaphor of light and darkness will act as a litmus paper for democracy. The Belgian researcher and artist uses this simple installation to stimulate communal energy.

Another piece, TORDRE, will be presented on Sunday, 27 September (6 pm). TORDRE is a poetic duo for two female characters, in which French choreographer and documentary director Rachid Ouramdane attempts to seek the fundamental gesture which brings the body of the dancer in motion. Why do I dance the way I do? What do I think of when I decide to make a given gesture? The private stories of dancers who try to get to the core of their movements amount to an archive which is host to subtle choreography.

More on the shows and artists:

sexyMF

Sitting in front of performers and listening to songs about love, the audience has a chance to meet the other in an intimately direct, face to face relationship. It is the viewer who decides as to their interaction with performers and its duration. The performers have been selected through auditions held in Warsaw.

The oppositions of body/mind, interior/exterior, us/others cease to be important in erotic situations of seduction. The relationship with another person does away with divisions, including the sexual ones. At the same time, it blurs the boundary between art and life, audience and stage. Sexy MF is a simulation of a return to the mythical times of androgynous harmony, a search for unity in the era of antagonisms, and an expression of nostalgia for the panhuman community.

Choreographers: AnaBorralho&Jo?oGalante
Assistant choreographer: AndréUerba
Performers: performers selected through workshops
Make-up: Jorge Bragada
Produced by: casaBranca
Coproduced by: Culturgest, Festival Tempsd?Images
Premiere: 2006 / Lisbon
Produced for and presented at the Body/Mind Festival as part of: Open Latitudes, supported by the EU Culture Programme

Duration: 180 minutes

Ana Borralho and Jo?o Galante are an artistic duo from Portugal. Since 2002 they have been working on projects combining performance, dance, installations, photography, video and sound-art. They work with bodies: their own (no body never mind, 2004-2006), those of performers selected through casting (ATLAS project, 2011) or those of participants of protests and social happenings (EN GR?VE, 2014) ? attempting to uncover the revolutionary, subversive strength of societies. In their works, they take on issues related to physicality and sexuality. By means of subversive strategies and sharp, borderline physiological gestures they put the body in a socio-political context. They are also interested in the relationship between viewer and artist, art and regular life. Ana and Jo?o are a couple outside of their work, too, which lets them apply both masculine and feminine energy to the creative process. They consider themselves a whole divided into two bodies, and in their works they frequently recall the lost symbol of human unity.

http://www.cialoumysl.pl/en/actions-events/body-mind-festival/2015/performances/sexymf

The performance installation is intended for ADULT VIEWERS ONLY.
The installation will be open from 7 pm to 10 pm ? tickets may be purchased until 9:30 pm.

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David Weber-Krebs: Tonight, lights out

“Tonight, between 8 pm sharp and five past eight, let?s put the lights out!?, is how the German tabloid “Bild Zeitung? encouraged its readers to show they cared for the global climate on 8 December 2007. The symbolic gesture of switching the lights off was supposed to serve as activating one?s involvement in the global community, too. Instead of asking about the pragmatic dimension of the happening, Weber-Krebs asks about the quality of that moment. What were the people doing during these five minutes of darkness? Can a spontaneous communal happening be pre-orchestrated? Is it possible to stage a situation wherein a sense of unity will result in real, albeit momentary, change? Or if it does not yield a change then and there, perhaps it can at least cause it to happen later on?

An installation made of light bulbs, each for one person in the audience. The bulb ?owners? decide when and if to switch them off, guided by small impulses. The light and darkness metaphor treated literally becomes a litmus paper for the idea of democracy. The Belgian researcher and artist uses this simple installation to stimulate communal energy. He ponders on the willingness to conform, to participate, to get out of one?s comfort zone in the name of a common experience. As a master of the ceremony he offers the audience to experience the darkness together. The legend of an Egyptian boy he narrates, interwoven with environmental and contemporary dilemmas, necessitates taking a stand. Then the tiny gesture gains the weight of a collective decision.

Concept, text, performance by: David Weber-Krebs
Sound: CoordtLinke
Technique: Hans Westendorp
Tour manager: Martin Kaffarnik
Production and support: Marie Urban

A Stichting Infinite Endings production in co-prodution with Frascati, STUK, Zeitraumexit and Theater Zeebelt.
premiere:
September 2011 / Festival Wunder der Prairie, Zeitraumexit
The piece is presented at the Body/Mind Festival as part of:
Open Latitudes, supported by the EU Culture Programme

Duration: 50 minutes

David Weber-Krebs is a Brussels-based artist and researcher. He studied at the University of Freiburg and School of the Arts in Amsterdam. In the center of his experiments he puts the relation between the piece of art and the audience. He creates interactive situations involving a wide range of media and materials. In his Balthazar project (2013) he put a donkey on the stage, while the Fade out installation (2005) consisted of slowly dimming all lights in a theatre. David believes a minimalistic form enables the audience to generate meaning rather than interpret it..

http://www.cialoumysl.pl/en/actions-events/body-mind-festival/2015/performances/tonight-lights-out-

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RachidOuramdane: TORDRE

By analysing simple choreographic dilemmas, choreographer-documentarian Rachid Ouramdane seeks to find the basic gesture that sets the dancer?s body into motion. Why do I dance the way I do? What do I think of when I decide to make this very gesture, not another one? Private stories of dancers striving to investigate the essence of their movements create an archive with subtle choreography emerging.

The search for the cause and essence of movement on stage consists of two remarkable portraits based on memories and specific characteristics of dance by Lora Juodkaite and Annie Hanauer, both of whom have spent many years working with the choreographer. The dancers decode choices their dance interpretations consist of. By following their own habits, they take the viewers into the world of personal experiences. Working with memories means it is not possible to meet the dancers on the stage, but their exposed loneliness becomes, paradoxically, the key to a magic story of reciprocity.

Ouramdane encourages us to adopt the dancer?s perspective when looking at dance , which on one hand is unique, but on the other it always remains a form of social practice. Asking about the extent to which movement is a role vs. an expression of the individual gives the audience an intimate look into the mental spaces of two women. Simultaneously, it signalises how each story occurs between the individual and the world, the subconscious and the body. TORDRE is the story of the invisible elements of the reality, reaching out from beneath superficial signs and gestures.

Concept, choreography: RachidOuramdane
Performance: Annie Hanauer, Lora Juodkaite
Light design: StéphaneGraillot
Technical stage direction: SylvainGiraudeau
Executive producer: ErellMelscoët
Manager: Ana?sMétayer
Production: L?A.

Co-produced by: Bonlieu Sc?ne nationale Annecy et La Bâtie ? Festival de Gen?ve dans le cadre du projet PACT bénéficiaire du FEDER avec le programme INTERREG IV A France-Suisse, and with the support of Musée de la Danse-Centre Chorégraphique National de Rennes et de Bretagne
premiere: 11 . 2014 / Bonlieu

The piece is presented at the Body/Mind festival as part of: Open Latitudes, supported by the EU Culture Programme
partner: Institut Francais

Duration: 75 minutes

Richad Ouramdane is a French choreographer of Algerian origin. For years he has been combining dance and documentaries, using archives ? traces of collective memories consisting of individual stories ? as his working material. The empty space between individual experience and the universal system of meanings ? between intimacy and objectivism ? is where he seeks the essence of community. In his works he uses elements of interviews and videos, working with music, lighting, amateurs and dancers with alternative physical abilities. Ouramdane produced his first original project, the Discreet Deaths solo devoted to online representations of death, in 2004. His most important pieces include For Far… (2008), an autobiographic solo in which the author revises his family history; Ordinary Witnesses based on accounts of torture survivors, produced in Brazil in 2009; Sfumato (2012), produced in China, in which Ouramdane ponders on the category of disappearing by giving voice to local refugees; and POLICES! (2013), based on a text by Sonia Chiambretto and set to music by Jean-Baptiste Julien, which revolves around the tension between memories and poetry. His interest in linguistics reoccurs in his present dance and choreography projects. Since 2007, Richad Ouramdane has been working under his own brand: L’A.

http://www.cialoumysl.pl/en/actions-events/body-mind-festival/2015/performances/tordre

www.vimeo.com/112205518#at=0

More information on the 14^th Body/Mind Festival website

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Tickets for events at the Studio:

www.teatrstudio.pl/repertuar

box office: + 48 22 656 69 41, bilety@teatrstudio.pl

Tickets for events at the Powszechny:

www.powszechny.com/rezerwacjabox office: tel.: +48 22 818 25 16, kasa@powszechny.com

More information about the tickets

The festival’s website: www.cialoumysl.pl/pl/dzialania-wydarzenia/festiwal-c-u/2015

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