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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October 2020
In the frame of ada Studios residency program reinkommen, I will show my very first solo. The untitled piece is an installative and intimate performance hosting eight people at a time.
Dates: 10th October 2020, 8 pm | 16th October 2020, 6pm & 8pm
More information on ada Studios website.
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September 2020
September is very social – and not only concerning human interactions. I am spending quite some time trying to be with, to sense, and also to communicate with plants. If I, if we are succeeding? Who knows? As part of a group of five dancer/performers aka. nature-culture-biologists, I am involved in the shooting of Die Korbträger, an experimental documentary movie by Max Hilsamer and Anna Lauenstein. By following specific so called ‘invasive species’, the film is aiming at addressing the complex relations between colonialism, the categorization of nature that comes with the blossoming of natural sciences, and racialising/racist discourses of otherness.
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Good news! I was granted a sort of scholarship, DIS-TANZEN SOLO, by Dachverband Tanz, an institution pursuing the interests of freelance dance artists in Germany. From May to August 2021, this scholarship will support my research into a new field of interest: anger and rage. I am curious to speak with women of all ages about their experiences with it, to hear how female socialized persons feel about anger, how they express it – or not. What ignites their anger? Similar to my last research, this project will combine rather intuitively initiated encounters with experts and non-experts, self observation, movement exploration, and reading.
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August 2020
This summer, Lake Studios hosts the 4th edition of an intensive festival dedicated to submerging into specific performance works. With EINE GESCHICHTE DER WELT, a dance piece for children (6 years +), we are part of it. Conceived as an embodied »re-creative« lab into the making of the piece, in our workshop, we revisit games, exercises, and conversations used for the development of EINE GESCHICHTE DER WELT, attempting to embody events of a galactical and highly speculative nature, searching for creatures we don‘t know of yet, and indulging in the pleasure of feeding our imagination.
Workshop with Lea Martini & Johanna Ackva: August 10 – 13, 10 – 16h
Performance: August 15, 18h
LAKE STUDIOS, Berlin Friedrichshagen
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BeComing_ein übersinnliches Selbstpotrait, originally planned live-performance, will now premier as a film. As dramaturge I had the pleasure to assist Barbara Bess’ conceptualizing, shooting and editing process. Accompanied by Fabian Riess as a second performer, and a wonderful team behind the scenes (Lars Fischer /sound, Stefan Kleeberger & Sebastian Authenried /camera) Barbara started strolling through fields and forests around her own home in the Franconian village of Kirchfembach, seeing, smelling, and sensing what she encountered, submerging into her everyday surroundings until they became magic. The film offers immersive landscapes of image and sound, and a radically sensorial experience.
Screenings: August 22 and August 31, 21h / St.-Katharina-Festival / Katharinenruine Nürnberg
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July 2020
… is research time. I am sticking my nose into other people’s business, for instance funeral eulogies. Studying how death and mourning are being dealt with brings me to the town of Hangelsberg.
Ich sitze neben der Rednerin in ihrem kleinen weißen Auto mit Hybridantrieb. Wir sind auf dem Weg nach Hangelsberg, Hangelsberg wie Galgenberg, sagt sie. In Hangelsberg gibt es einen FriedWald®. Mit dem großen F, dem großen W und dem eingekreisten R ist dieser Wald sozusagen eine Marke. Nach zwei Kilometern auf einem rumpeligen Weg parken wir und steigen aus: rundherum Nadel- und Laubhölzer, Maiglöckchen, Farne, Käfer, Stechmücken, … Neben der Rednerin, der Försterin und mir sind neun Trauergäste anwesend, im Grunde zwei Familien. Jede*r hier ist mit der Verstorbenen verwandt oder verschwägert. Keine Freund*innen. Bei alten Menschen sei das häufig so. Als ich der Familie in die offene, aus Holz gezimmerte Rundhütte mit der runden Dachluke folge, ist da noch eine Frau in einem festlichen schwarzen Kleid an einem E-Piano. Auf groben Bänken sitzend hören wir ihren Liedern zu. Abschied ist ein scharfes Schwert/ das allzu tief ins Herz dir fährt und das in bayerischer Mundart gesungene Sag beim Abschied leise Servus. In der Luft tanzen Staubkörner, sie glitzern in der Sonne. Aus den Wipfeln über uns der einzelne Ruf einer Krähe.
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June 2020
In collaboration with dancer and choreographer Magdalena Meindl, sound artist Joëlle Serret, and video artist Maximilian Hilsamer, we just finished the video installation bluefold.
The footage used shows two persons standing on each other’s toes, face to face and belly to belly, together involved in an ongoing repeating movement. Falling out of the vertical and away from one another, they alternately catch and bring each other back to center. If it were not for the loss of balance and a limited capacity for twosomeness, they would endlessly swing from side to side, riding their rhythms of tenderly brushing skin and violently crushing chests.
Originally taken from the piece couple-like by Keren Levi and Hugo Dehaes, Magdalena and me borrowed and transformed the movement material and choreographic setup for a scene in our piece Diagrams of Dependency (2015). Later, we took the material and developed it further into a performance of it’s own (Zähle mich zu den Mandeln I/II | 2016). In bluefold finally, the material incarnates into a three-channel video installation, an immersive polyrhythmic visual and sonic experience – that we will hopefully soon be able to share in its full spatial dimensions.
Tinged with different tones of blue – the color of the sky, or more precisely, of the light that gets lost in the molecules of the air – the work evokes facets of the relationship between distance and desire. Intimacy and the minimalism of the movement material create a situation in which subtle dynamics between two humans become tangible while at the same time refusing any conclusion.
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