Contemporary avantgarde dance! “It’s a trio for three butches who are butches, but at the same time they are many other things.”
11 (reduction)
With Normal Dance, Antonia Baehr, who has been working as a choreographer for about fifteen years, will sign her first dance piece. ‘Normal Dance’ is a dance trio that strives to integrate itself into the avant-garde of contemporary dance. She has invited two friends to dance who have much in common with her; Mirjam Junker and Pia Thilmann. Unlike Antonia Baehr; Pia Thilmann and Mirjam Junker do not habitually view contemporary stage dance, however the three of them do share the fact that their bodies are not trained for the type of activity usually required by it. The three of them are based in Berlin and share the embodiment of female masculinity: firm grips, grounded supports, strength, bigness. It’s a trio for three butches who are butches, but at the same time they are many other things.
The dance is written based on the three performers’ corporality, morphology and motor functions. It is structured and framed by Gertrude Stein's words from her opera Four Saints in Three Acts of 1927. The music is a record-collection of contemporary experimental music by female composers spun live by Djane CC Emperatriz. The audience is invited to sit around the dance, in proximity to it. The piece consists of moving bodies. Through proximity and distance to each other, they form relation. This makes a landscape. This makes a composition of geometrical forms; in lines, in diagonals, in parallels, in crosses, in triangles. The piece may be about this if it may and if you may or even if I may like it so. So then it may be about dance as a form of being together and apart, dance as a form of community. A trio is not a light fare: one plus one, one plus two, two plus one, one plus one plus one, and seldom three harmonically all together. At the end, three strong individuals share one limited space.
“You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don't dance. So you might as well dance.” ― Gertrude Stein, Three Lives
Aftertalk on Saturday 9 December
After the performance on Saturday we'll invite you to a conversation with Tom Engels and Antonia Baehr. Feel free to ask questions!
DE | Concept: Antonia Baehr | Performance: Antonia Baehr, Mirjam Junker, Pia Thilmann | Choreography: Antonia Baehr, Valérie Castan, Mirjam Junker, Pia Thilmann, Maya Weinberg | Artistic assistant: Valérie Castan | Movement research: Maya Weinberg | Technical direction and sound design: Carola Caggiano (DJane CC Imperatriz) | Light design: Miss Candless | With music by: Ursula Bogner, Delia Derbyshire, Sabine Ercklentz, Annette Krebs, Magda Mayas, Rie Nakayima, Andrea Neumann, Zeena Parkins, Les Femmes Savantes, Nancy Tobin, Miki Yui | Surtitles from the opera: 'Four Saints in Three Acts' by Gertrude Stein | Production management: Xenia Leydel | Internship: Joana Tischkau | Production: Alexandra Wellensiek / make up productions | Coproduction: HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Schwankhalle (Bremen), DeVIR/CAPa - Centro de Artes Performativas do Algarve (Residency) ¬ Supported by: Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin | Thank you to: Lee Meir, Jack Smith, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Irene Revell (electra), Ida Wilde (Keren Ida Nathan), Theaterhaus Mitte, a.o. | With the support of Goethe Instituut.
In the framework of THE FUTURE IS FEMINIST.
