Continue reading “On the colonizer’s continent”In Pumpitopera Transatlantica created and performed by Mexa and showing at HAU2 on 19 and 20 May 2023 as the initial stop of the collective’s first international tour, absences and gaps in understanding are not mistakes. They are the lifeblood of a performance that rewrites the future without losing sight of the material reality of past and present.
Cory Tamler
is a writer, translator, and interdisciplinary artist, and a PhD candidate in theatre and performance studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her current writing projects are on social choreography and on the connections between contemporary experimental practice in physics and performance.
Inside an Unfillable Hole
Continue reading “Inside an Unfillable Hole”Liz Rosenfeld’s “URSA-X”, playing in the fourth and final installment of the spring festival series Queer Darlings at Sophiensæle from 20-23 April 2023, is a meditation on the hole at all scales, from the microscopic to the planetary.
The Ghost Has Not Left the Machine
Continue reading “The Ghost Has Not Left the Machine”Philippe Quesne’s “Fantasmagoria”, in its German premiere at HAU2 on 2 and 3 March 2023, looks at new materialism through the theatrical lens of eighteenth-century storytelling and scientific experimentation, searching for a vital spark.
Putting in the Time
Continue reading “Putting in the Time”Makisig Akin’s “Asian/LOVE”, premiering at DOCK 11 on 3 and 4 February 2023, is a gift—if one you may have to work for.
Centripetal Performance
TANZTAGE BERLIN 2023 >>> In Xenia Koghilaki’s “Bang Bang Bodies”, the opening performance (5 & 6 January 2023) of Tanztage Berlin at Sophiensæle, a force builds slowly and insistently, pulling the audience into the performers’ orbit.
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Longing for Mountains: Interspecies Performance Experiments
Continue reading “Longing for Mountains: Interspecies Performance Experiments”Barbara Berti’s “Zone of Acceptance” premiered at Uferstudios from 25 – 28 August 2022. Dance collective Mapped to the Closest Address first showed “Turn off the house lights” at Cordillera Raum für Körper und Utopien on 4 March and 21 May, and a new version from 18 August – 11 September in Japan as part of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in conjunction with their installation, “We like to watch clumsy-seeming mountains.” Both projects have evolved, and continue to evolve, out of collaboration and experimentation undertaken by humans with nonhumans: dogs, cats, plants, and landscapes.
Caring for the Space
Anajara Amarante’s “Butching Cowboys” played at Sophiensæle as part of the Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer Festival from 15 – 17 September 2022. Part of the festival’s larger creation of an intersectional queer-crip space, the performance modeled care for everyone in the room.
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Don’t Blink
Continue reading “Don’t Blink”Marrugeku’s “Jurrungu Ngan-ga / Straight Talk” played at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele from 5 – 7 August 2022 as part of Tanz im August. Choreographed by Dalisa Pigram with direction and dramaturgy by Rachael Swain, it staged a ‘prison of the mind’ that was a call not to pity people suffering far away, but rather to wake up to the deadly incoherencies we live with here and now.
Relativity in the Here (and There) and Now (and Then)
Continue reading “Relativity in the Here (and There) and Now (and Then)”Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg’s “Einstein on the Beach” (30 June – 3 July 2022 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele) reworks the minimalist opera classic for a maximalist era, playing with relativity, simultaneity, and how to feel time differently in an endless present.
Tell Me Another Story
Continue reading “Tell Me Another Story”On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of opening their Kreuzberg studio, laborgras (Renate Graziadei and Arthur Stäldi) showed “Er… Sie… und andere Geschichten” from 2 – 6 June 2022. In conversation, laborgras shared both a deeper insight into this work and a longer view of their decades as a collective.
How Much Does an Answer Weigh?
Continue reading “How Much Does an Answer Weigh?”“ROOOM #2” is the second of a four-part series conceived by Mirjam Sögner and could be visited 7 May 2022 at Heizhaus, Uferstudios Berlin. Created by Sögner in collaboration with Fernando Belfiore, “ROOOM #2” was a performance without performers in which, for me, meditations on the weight of experience floated to the surface.
High Space, Low Space
Continue reading “High Space, Low Space”“We Are Going to Mars: A Choreographic Concert” by Company Christoph Winkler, playing from 7 to 10 April 2022 at Sophiensæle, is a kaleidoscope of music, movement, and image that locates the final frontier within its audience as well as beyond the reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere.
What a Table’s Dreams Are Made of
TANZPLATTFORM 2022 >>> In “Telling Stories – a version for three” by Fabrice Mazliah / Work of Act, playing 17 – 19 March at Radialsystem, as part of Tanzplattform 2022, three dancers play with invisible objects that their imaginations, joined with those of the audience, make real.
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Dance Partners and Thought Partners
Continue reading “Dance Partners and Thought Partners”Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop’s “LOVE:15”, playing 4-6 March 2022 at radialsystem, was all about how a pair-ship creates a new, unique, and never-finished world. Audience pairs can participate in this creative act, too.
Dream With Me
Continue reading “Dream With Me”TANZPLATTFORM 2022 >>> In “CASCADE” by Meg Stuart / Damaged Goods, running 24-26 February at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, a collective dream of time becomes reality — or was real all along? The show is one of the selected performances of Tanzplattform Deutschland 2022 and will appear again 19 & 20 March at the Volksbühne.
From Meteors to Mycelia
Continue reading “From Meteors to Mycelia”Sergiu Matis’s “DRANG”, which premiered at radialsystem on 17 February 2022 as one of the featured performances of Tanzfabrik’s Open Spaces festival, keeps its emotional distance while still offering to suck audiences into its world by playing with size and scale.
Dancing to Someone Else’s Beat
Continue reading “Dancing to Someone Else’s Beat”She She Pop’s “Dance Me!”, which premiered at Hebbel am Ufer 18-24 January 2022, stages the gap between two generations as a showdown — a dance-off between Team Young and Team Old. How important is it to consider who issued the challenge and to understand its terms?
Walling the Desert
Continue reading “Walling the Desert”In “Death Valley Junction”, playing 21 and 22 January as part of Tanztage Berlin 2022 at the Sophiensæle, Lulu Obermayer staged a ‘solo duet’ with one of her artistic foremothers that got me wondering where — in this love song to a performer and to performance — the audience fits in.