Pictured: Paweł Sakowicz “TOTAL”. Photo: Jakub Wittchen.
In Between Festivals in Wrocław is a year-long series of events focusing on Berlin?s jazz and contemporary dance stage. The May edition of dance events features Paweł Sakowicz?s performance TOTAL and Jule Flierl presenting Operation Orpheus on 18 May at 7 pm at MiserArt (35A Cybulskiego St.). Flierl will also appear in a group performance in Warsaw on 2 June as part of (sic!) four seasons series. Also at MiserArt, on 19 May at 8 pm, international group Sequoia will give a concert accompanied by a performance of Yuko Kaseki, a butoh dancer residing in Berlin.
About the performance:
Paweł Sakowicz TOTAL solo project is a speculating on the virtuosity of dance is a way of thinking that could be based on experience, but somehow cannot be empirically checked. The goal of such a speculation is to achieve a particular image of dance virtuosity through the use of anticipated changes in economy, politics and metahumanistic approaches. Taking a risk in building radical scenarios concerning the politics of desire is a characteristic feature of speculation on the virtuosity of dance.
Choreography, text and performance: Paweł Sakowicz
Artistic coaching: Dalija Aćin Thelander
Technical realisation and lights: Łukasz Kędzierski
Production: Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk
Paweł Sakowicz is a dancer and choreographer. He graduated from the University of Warsaw with a degree in political studies, and holds an MA in Performance and Choreography from the London Contemporary Dance School. He has collaborated with Sasha Roubicek, Jeannie Steele, Paolo Mangiola, Maria Stokłosa, Ramona Nagabczyńska, Sjoerd Vreugdenhil, Mikołaj Mikołajczyk, Marta Ziółek, Iza Szostak, Rebecca Lazier, Alex Baczyński-Jenkins, and Isabelle Schad. He often collaborates with artists, curators and culture institutions in London, Warsaw and Berlin. His recent solo Bernhard (2014) was selected for the 2014 Polish Dance Platform. Sakowicz was supported by a scholarship awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, a residency programme run by the Institute of Music and Dance, and by the Alternative Dance Academy of the Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk.
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Solo Operation Orpheus is fragmenting an early romantic aria and its melody, words, narrative, emotions and gestures. Dissociating the body of a historical chant. Pieces of a whole accumulate, loop, delay and change their speed to form a new musical structure. The project is titled Operation Orpheus because it cuts through the body of the aria, helping to look at all the elements separately and to put them back together. This is a singing sculpture for an installation performance, which explores the materiality of the early romantic aria Che faro senza Euridice in relation to silent gestures from romantic ballet.
Che faro senza Euridice by C.W. Gluck is taken from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice, which premiered in 1762. Orpheus, the god of music and poetry, goes to the underworld to bring back his lover Euridice and fails because he cannot resist looking around to see the body that speaks to him. The sublime that is inherent to this romantic aria gets fragmented, and one can glimpse more precisely into its details without being overtaken by the sadness and longing inherent to the song?s narrative. Repetition, slowing down and speeding up, leaving gaps, varying volume, silence, getting stuck and flowing again create a choreographic structure based on a song. The project is called Operation Orpheus precisely because it is about dissecting the aria?s body, having a look at the pieces and putting them back together again. The score of the original song is displayed on music stands, so one can read the song in its original tempo and order, while the performer enacts her deformed version of it. While singing, she makes classical gestures along with the text, pointing at the romantic period, when the gesture was considered the language of a silent dancer. Only through this system of gestural semiotics, dance could transgress its role of a light intermission in opera performances and gain a sovereign status in theatre hierarchy. In Operation Orpheus, two languages meet in one body, the former rivals in the history of Western theatre: the chant of an aria and the gestural language of classical ballet.
Choreography, performance: Jule Flierl
Costume: Dorothée Hénon
Thanks to: Bojana Bauer, Loic Touzé, Anne Kerzerho, Adaline Anobile
Tickets: PLN 20
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In Between Festivals is not just a festival. It is a year-long series of concerts and contemporary dance shows. The participants include some of the stars of Berlin?s alternative scene, many of them performing in Wrocław for the first time. In the first half of the year, Hermann Heisig, Rafał Dziemidok and Ewa Garniec, Maria F. Scaroni, Vania Rovisco and Jule Flierl will present their dance productions. These events will be accompanied by talks hosted by Ania Nowak, Agata Siniarska and Karolina Wycisk. In Between Festivals is part of the Wrocław-Berlin collaboration project initiated by the Zukunft Berlin Foundation and the European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016. Project partners include Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Hewlett Packard, Kulturprojekte Berlin, Luneta, Mediapool and Mica Moca. The project is financed by the European Commission and the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie in Berlin.
