March 2024
If on Sunday, March 17th you happen to be in Worpswede, which – I am aware – does not just happen, please come to the Große Kunstschau Worpswede. Together with performers, Josephine Brinkmann, Sylvie Viain and Alexander Groß, I’ll be performing VIOLINS. VIOLENCE. SILENCE, a sound piece based on Bruce Nauman’s installation of the same name. The performance happens in the frame of Julia Kielmann’s exhibition Licht und Schatten. We start at 3pm.
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January 2024
Beginnings of the year feel always difficult to me, so I’m trying to focus not on the new but on the things that continue. It gives me a sense of stability that can eventually get me into the mood of a new year, new round. In that sense: Already since autumn last year, as part of Tanzbüro Berlin’s tanzschreiber project, I am writing and publishing reviews on dance and performance works in Berlin. You can find my texts in German as well as the English translations on the website of tanzschreiber. Being a performance maker myself, writing about other people’s work is a really interesting process that helps me reflect not only upon the role of dance and other body-based practices, but also on my very personal preferences and the values they are rooted in.
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December 2023
I’m happy to share some images from the recent reading of High Fidelity at sophiensaele! Many warm thanks to Judith Milz, Isabel Lewis, Dirk Bell, Roman Widder, Hannes Becker and Gabriel Becak for the talks and your practical support!
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Sophiensaele’s reopening under a new team of curators will be celebrated in December with the festival Trust the process. During the festival, Isabel Lewis and Dirk Bell will be entertaining a hosting space at the former canteen of sophiensaele. There is free soup every day and a diverse program of artists showing and sharing music, tastes, words, and much more. On the 12th of December at 5pm, you can be my guest for High Fidelity, a performative reading in German language that circulates around ears, voices and the sense of hearing.
“Für Johanna war die Existenz ihrer Stimmen natürlich nicht fraglich. Zum ersten Mal hörte sie diese am Abend, wahrscheinlich bei Sonnenuntergang. Sie erwähnt die Kirchenglocken, die die Nacht einläuten. Sie ist auf dem Feld, um die Schafe ihres Vaters nach Hause zu holen.”
Photo: AI and I
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October 2023
Save the date: We’re showing Grandmothers again in a new version on November 4th and 5th! More information and tickets available via Vierte Welt.
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There is a beautiful photo article about Isabelle Schad’s The Shift Of Focus, in which I have performed, on Dieter Hartwig’s dance blog. Have a look! Also, the performance’s booklet is a beautiful trace of the work and contains my text On shipping and other in-between movements.
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September 2023
On the last meters for Isabelle Schads The Shift Of Focus, we’re singing, catching kites and practicing to lean on each other, making the space turn. Don’t miss the shows in the wonderful old theatre of HAU1!
Photo: Dieter Hartwig
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July 2023
Thank you so much, Uferstudios GmbH and Berliner Senat, for offering us the great opportunity to rethink, explore and rediscover new aspects of an already performed work! Together with Nagao Akemi, Bettina Mileta and Evelyn Saylor, I had the pleasure to pull the performance Grandmothers out of its box and spend three weeks attempting to come closer to our departed grandmothers, using not only movement and voice, but this time also an array of exciting media, amongst them a sewing machine. Now, we are looking forward to another rehearsal phase in October and two showings in November at Vierte Welt. Stay tuned!
Photos: Roman Hagenbrock
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June 2023
We’re performing a durational performance by Isabelle Schad in the frame of Sommerfest.ival at Tanzhalle Wiesenburg. Studies On Infinity#1 explores some of the materials for Isabelle’s upcoming group piece at HAU1 in depth and chains them into a hypnotizing loop.
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May 2023
We’re organizing a spring party in Libken! With: Bar Paradieschen, delicious food by Kochsalon /Bus, a performance by the wonderful dance collective In An Instant and DJs Tulip and Pilou Fuzz! Join us for hanging out, chats and dances under our new canopied work space!
When: May 28th, starting from 4:30 pm / performance at 5:30 pm
Where. Denk- und Produktionsort Libken e.V., Ort Böckenberg 15-17, 17268 Gerswalde
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I’m back to rehearsals with Isabelle Schad and a group of 15 dancers. It is a lot of fun to dive into movement principles from Aikido and apply them to Isabelle’s choreographic propositions. And I’m very much enjoying the practice-based process that spreads out until October (premiere mid October / HAU1).
In the meantime, I’m also working with choreographer Camilla Féher for a spontaneously upcoming show of hers in Bremen. Her musical choreography/ choreographed concert gives me an opportunity to meet some performers from the inclusive Berlin-based theatre Thikwa and to get to know the international inclusive theater festival Mittenmang.
Details: Konzertperformance by Camilla Féher & Guests | May 20th 2023, 20:30h | Brauhaus Bremen
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In and as part of Denk- und Produktionsort Libken, I’m happy to host and accompany two wonderful collectives for two residencies in May: hooops are going to investigate the potential of weeds to teach us how to survive in a world of changing climate and ecological crisis. Together with conspirative researchers from different fields of arts, they plug into the power of plants to design possible new futures. The seven performers of IN AN INSTANT will further develop their practice of instantly composed dance and poetry and share some insights in the frame of a little spring time celebration on Sunday, May 28th. Come by, it is a lot of fun!
For more information, see Libken’s website or Instagram.
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April 2023
April is a traveling month: Thanks to a research grant by Fons Darstellende Künste, I have the opportunity to read and investigate into breath as a physiological, spiritual and ecological phenomenon. Doing that at Performing Arts Forum (PAF) in France is an extra-pleasure. The former monastery and boarding school invites to roam around in plenty of rooms, halls, libraries and the hidden corners of a great garden. I especially enjoyed the strange (still) life of empty beds, squished cushions and stacked covers. The second half of this month is dedicated to a Body Mind Centering education program and the study of primitive reflexes, the alphabet of the body’s movement vocabulary.
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March 2023
A beautiful text by Michela Filzi on “Physis” (Moritz Macje) in which I performed in the end of February went online! You can read it here.
“As the dancers relate to our presence, we simultaneously relate to theirs. It is a deeply ecological thought to become aware of the fact that we are not solely spectators of our environment, but unquestionably part of it.”
Physis by Moritz Majce, with: Yuri Shimaoka, Cary Shiu, Àgnes Grélinger, Zuki Ringart, Johanna Ackva. Photos by Kata Kwiatkowska
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February 2023
Save the date!
Physis is the title of four evenings of practice development showings, in which I will be performing together with Agí Grelinger, Zuki Ringleb, Cary Shiu, and Yuri Shimaoka. In the past months, we had the pleasure of rehearsing with initiator Moritz Majce exploring and refining principles of Relational Flow. Places are limited, so getting your tickets in advance is recommended!
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January 2023
Healthy and happy New Year!
I’m starting 2023 with good news: Nagao Akemi, Evelyn Saylor, Bettina Mileta and myself will have the opportunity to rework the performance Grandmothers (2021, Ballhaus Ost) in July and August in the frame of Uferstudios’ residency format VERTIEFEN. Originally developed by three of us, Bettina will join us to work on material matters as objects, space, or costumes. Grandmothers will then be performed in fall in a revised version, at Vierte Welt.
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December 2022
After four years, we are reperforming Eine Geschichte der Welt, a dance piece for young audiences, at fabrik Potsdam where it was initially created. Bring your kids or children friends along and come see Lea Martini, Dennis Deter, Filo Krause and myself transforming from stars to dinosaurs and from furry eggs to wind-filled whirling planets! Photo: Élise Schneider
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Helping almost magically to face the gray December days, are rehearsals with the team of Physis, five amazing co-preformers and -improvisers: Cary Shiu, Yuri Shimaoka, Djibril Sall, Zuki Ringart, and Ági Grélinger. The project by Moritz Majce will be presented at the end of February 2023 at Tanzfabrik Berlin and is developing around a research of principles of Relational Flow.
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November 2022
Save the date: Sebastian Blasius’ Schiffbruch mit Zuschauenden will premiere on November 24th at Ballhaus Ost. For me, this is the first time in many years working with a script (by Björn SC Deigner). Also part of the team are: Hauke Heumann, Katharina Shakina, Katja Gaudard (performance), Melina Brinkmann (assistance), Caspar Pichner (set and costumes). Photo: Jerun Vahle
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October 2022
Very happy, thankful and tired after the re-preformance of the series CLOUDS ON CLEAR SKY at Vierte Welt Berlin. This time without Sophie Kuhlmann, or rather, with only her voice and absentual presence in Jan Burkhardts solo. A very sweet and beautiful report of their during that evening was written by Rosina Lui, a student of Bard college Berlin. The last of the four nights with Nagao Akemi was documented by tanzforumberlin and discussed in an article by Micha Tsouloukidse. Photo: Uta Neumann
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August 2022
Save the date / August 24, 2022, starting at 6 pm: Together with visual artist and author Anna Zett I’m currently preparing an event in the frame of the Berlin Project Space Festival 2022. Postindependent is a live-exhibition in which c
With contributions by: Circaeaa, Irina Gheorghe, Nathan Powless-Lynes, and Susanne Kohler.
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June 2022
I’m very glad to be invited with a performance for the opening of Christina Huber’s solo exhibition ‘Darling You Should Feel Lucky’, curated by Marie DuPasquier and hosted by Display Berlin. In ‘Human Polygraph’, I explore aspects of relationality and resonance in solo dance, tapping into the ghostly and mystical, and borrowing some musical lines from a composition by Hildegard von Bingen. 4th of June 2022, 19h. Mansteinstraße 16, 10783 Berlin.
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The end of June brings a very pleasant new experience on water for me: With choreographer Clément Layes, I spend two weeks in a residency, hosted by fabric Potsdam in order to work on his practice of one-on-one boat tours, ‘floating listening’. While we row our guests down the small river Nuthe, fragments of memories, myths and reflections that are delivered through headphones to our guest, address the experience of loss and the connection of water, transitions, and healing. Together with Jonas Maria Droste, I translated texts originally written in English into a German version of the performance.
Photographs by Angelique Preau
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May 2022
Libken collective, which I am part of since last year, Olivia Golde and Charlotte von Bausznern are inviting for the opening of the new Libken library. There will be readings for adults and kids, coffee, cake and the possibility to stroll around and explore the new public library! 21.5.2022 / 14h Come by!
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April 2022
Vierte Welt Berlin is finally showing BLOCK #4 | NUOVO CORVIALE | ROM. The video essay and installation with live music by Macarena Solervicenz Ruz merges images of the circular concrete buildings of Neues Zentrum Kreuzberg around Kottbusser Tor with those of the modernist architectural project Nuovo Corviale in Rome. As mysterious figures, we flit through corridors and staircases, women of different ages disappearing and reappearing in the inhabited ruins of two equally outdated utopian projects. April, 7-10, 2022, Vierte Welt Berlin
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March 2022
As part of the second edition of OVERSEEN & UNDERTAKEN at Flutgraben e.V. Berlin, Carrie McILwain and me will invite to an experimental performance and ritual. The Great Commonality is a meeting of second-hand elements of two former solo performances, untitled Solo (Johanna) and Grief+Gratitude (Carrie). Inviting communication and cross-fertilization between spoken and sung texts, installed objects and movement material, a new performance arises. Next to our performance, the evening features a showing by the choreographer Jasna L. Vinovrški as well as a talk about the specific qualities, challenges, or strategies of working when dealing with the topic of death, finiteness and mourning.
March 28 2022 | 19h doors/19:30 beginning | Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin | entrance donation-based
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February 2022
For those hungry for frische Landluft, new experiences and movement: In April & Mai, I will host two workshops in Libken. Naïma Mazic & Lukas Akintaya invite dancers and musicians to explores ways of artistic communication. Regina Baumgart offers insights into her dance practice based on the somatic method Eutonie Gerda Alexander and Labans movement principles. Sign up ends a month before the workshops. More information
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This evening at Flutgraben Berlin brings together three works inspired by the theme of death, dying and grief. The four authors of these works, Pauline Payen, Johanna Ackva & Carrie MclLwain and Jasna L. Vinovrški, have been dealing with this subject for a while now, and on that path they have encountered each other in various constellations and circumstances. Their different approaches can offer an insight into their artistic reflections, imaginations and visions about the process of dying, death and the state of grief, which can hopefully inspire further dialogues with and among the audience, about these essential experiences in our lives. More information.
>>>> ENTRANCE DONATION-BASED
>>>> DOORS 6.30 – 7PM
>>>> 2G+
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December 2021
18.12.2021 – As part of the Dirty Debüt edition S2#9 after life, dancer-choreographer Nagao Akemi, composer Evelyn Saylor and myself will perform (with our) Grandmothers at Ballhaus Ost. Tickets are available only online.
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October 2021
CLOUDS ON CLEAR SKY | solos and duets with: Akemi Nagao (7.10.), Jan Burkhardt & Sophie Kuhlmann (8.10.), emeka ene (9.10.), Regina Baumgart (10.10) | Vierte Welt Berlin | Registration here
Rehearsal, Jan Burkhard & Sophie Kuhlmann, Photo by Aïsha Mia Lethen
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In the frame of the exhibition On Illness, Resistance and Modes of Collective (Health) Care, I had the pleasure of engaging in a so called Intimate Talk with Nino Halka. Extracts of our conversation on personal experiences with death, dying and our own finiteness, as well as on the past years of my artistic work around the topic can be listened to in the exhibition. In the cosy listening corner, also the publication aus dem, was sprachfähig war. Versuche einer Annäherung an Sterben, Tod und Endlichkeit and extracts from interviews with the performers of CLOUDS ON CLEAR SKY can be read. The exhibition will continue running until November 27 and is open for visitors Tuesday (12-16h), Thursday, Friday (15-19h) and Saturday (11-15h).
Installation views, On Illness, Resistance and Modes of Collective (Health) Care, Districit*Schule ohne Zentrum, 2021, Photographer: Chiara Faggionato
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September 2021
Curated by Marie DuPasquier & hosted by Vierte Welt & the project CLOUDS ON CLEAR SKY for which I am rehearsing at the moment on three solos and one duet that will be presented in October, three Evenings are taking place in the space of the rehearsal. Always on Thursdays, we have invited artists and thinkers of different fields to reflect on the topic of finiteness, death and mourning through the lenses of their respective practices.
Videostill, Magali Dougoud
09.09.21 – VALE OF TEARS with Magali Dougoud (video) & Gesine Palmer (lecture)
16.9. – TORPOR by Laure Boer (dan bau) with Pina Rücker (crystal singing bowls) & Evelyn Saylor (voice)
16.09.21 – GRIEF AND GRATITUDE by Carrie McILwain (lecture & ritual)
Entrance is free, but registration required.
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August 2021
The Pile and the Pyre | Residency at Tanzfabrik Berlin
The figure of the witch and the history of the European witch huntings serve as starting point for three weeks of somatic fantasy, performative research and feminist speculation. Hosted by Tanzfabrik Berlin and initiated by Carrie McILwain, this project explores the materiality and agency of wood and flesh, of parts of trees and parts of bodies as they are being carried and stacked, as they lean onto each other and pile up to what – under other circumstances – could have been a pyre. More information and free tickets for an open showing on August 20th can be found on the Tanzfabrik website.
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July 2021
WORKSHOP | Traces in Movement | Spuren in Bewegung | July 9-11 |
Denk- und Produktionsort Libken (Uckermark)
In this workshop, we explore the body as a site of memories – inscribed, stored, re-performed and to be build. Dancer and Feldenkrais practitioner Anna Jarrige and myself will offer a mix of Awareness Through Movement sessions, playful dance improvisation and writing scores to facilitate a weekend of investigation into one’s own body-mind-history and -present.
Open to all people interested, with and without movement experiences.
Register here.
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The video work Nach dem Warmhaus (After the Warmhouse) by Max Hilsamer and Anna Lauenstein is done and to be seen!
Galerie Bernau | HAUNT/ frontviews
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April 2021
Assisting Jörg Laue & Lose Combo in their collaboration with Sonar Quartett, I spent 14 days working around the geographical, mythological and anatomical aspects of Atlas. ATLAS’ WiRBEL | CONTAINER is a temporary archive that assembles sounds, text and spacial explorations of an installation built into one of the former industrial halls at Reinbeckhallen / Oberschöneweide that have been produced in this time.
Photo by David Baltzer
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February 2021
Dancing in the Zoo(m) – clumsy creatures and a telescopic view into the universe included. With the online adaption of EINE GESCHICHTE DER WELT, Lea Martini, Enis Turan and myself continue fabulating about the beginnings of this world and exchanging with kids 6+ about their thoughts on Earths history and future. Among the protagonists is also stage-set and costume designer Filomena Krause, per formatively represented by her amazing dinosaur head creations.
1st and 2nd of March, as part of any body out there? | Tanzhaus NRW | Düsseldorf
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January 2021
Slowly, slowly, gray and silent, the new year begins. Berlin is in a second lockdown due to rising numbers of COVID-19 cases. In her article, journalist and dance critic Christine Matschke broaches the issue of illness and death. Based on meetings and discussions with Berlin-based artists who have dealt with cancer and AIDS, or with the questions of solidarity, care and healing, she writes about what she calls applied research about resilience. Our conversation in November 2020 is mentioned at the very end of her text.
— Genau diese im Tod steckende Widersprüchlichkeit, dieses unsere Verletzlichkeit sichtbar machende Un-fassbare ist es wohl, was an Fortschritt orientierte Gesellschaften so schlecht aushalten können. —–It is precisely death’s inherent contradictoriness, the incomprehensible which reveals our vulnerability, which makes it so difficult to endure for progress-oriented societies. —
(Christine Matschke, tanzraumberlin Magazin Jan/Feb)
The complete magazine with a series of photos from my research can be dowloaded here.
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I am part of Pauline Payen’s performative research on physical states of grief. During her residency at Ateliers am Flutgraben, Pauline developed a first version of DUEIL. Here is a trailer!
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November 2020
As eight members of Suddenly collective, we are given the possibility to invite the Japanese dancer and choreographer Natsuko Tezuko to a residency in Tanzfabrik Berlin. For 20 years, Natsuko has been researching a way of dancing she calls “spontaneous movement”. Through deep observation of her own body, paradoxical tasks and her practice of letting movement arise from observation, Natsuko has developed several works that investigate how societally generated norms of behavior as well as histories of modernization and westernization block “spontaneous movement”. Her dance emerges from pressure and resistance and creates spaces of physical and emotional resilience. Starting from her piece Anatomical Experiment 6 – Departure from distorted image, Natsuko transmits her artistic methods and topics to the collective.
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