2012-2013
Time: 20:30
Length: 20 minutes
Two people face to face, repeating a sequence of a finite number of digits from the number ∏, the first thousand for example. One of them reads the sequence of numbers, eyes almost closed, with her eyelids painted like open eyes that seem to stare at the other person, who holds her gaze while carefully reading her lips so as to recite the numerical sequence in unison.
The choral nature of the performance sheds light on the physical quality of the production of language, its incarnation. The numbers take on life through the voice, acquiring a certain tone, gender and identity.
The impossible idea behind the premise, the recital of an infinite number, evinces the finiteness of human nature and the desire for eternity.
The artist
Itziar Okariz’s work encompasses video, photography and installation. Her interests focus on the construction of identity and subversion of the existing representational structures and body / space relationships, both public and private. The immediateness of her pieces establishes a constant dialogue with the places where they are performed. The repetition of actions in different places and at different times is also an essential aspect of her work, a way of creating nuances and differences using a single basic element.
Information about the show
Original idea Itziar Okariz
Performers Itziar Okariz and Víctor Iriarte
Time: 21:00
Length: 60 minutes
“I like laughing. I laugh a lot and the others can see how I laugh.”
Laugh is a piece about the nature of laughter. During the show, Antonia Baehr explores this form of expression as an independent entity and separates it out from its most common causes (jokes, tickling, stories, humour, happiness) to focus on the phenomenon itself: the sound and the form, the music, choreography and text, the rhythm and gesture of laughter. She does not intend to make us laugh, but contagion is inevitable and sometimes the laughter infectiously crosses the “fourth wall”.
The artist
Antonia Baehr is a choreographer. Her work is characterized by a non-disciplinary approach and collaboration with other people using a game structure to switch roles: each person is alternately the director / author / audience and performer / guest for the others. In 1994 she co-founded the Berlin-based performance group ex machinis. She graduated in Film and Media Arts from the Hochschule der Künste Berlin with Valie Export (1996) and won a merit scholarship to study at the Art Institute of Chicago. In this city she completed a Masters in Performance with the Lin Hixson Performance Group Goat Island and began to work with William Wheeler. Baehr has lived in Berlin since 2000, where she has organized several performance and experimental music events. She has worked with Lindy Annis, Valérie Castan, Sabine Ercklentz, Antonija Livingstone, Arantxa Martinez, Andrea Neumann and William Wheeler.
Information about the show
Based on the work of Naima Akkar, Lindy Annis, Bettina von Arnim, Antonia Baehr, Ulrich Baehr, Frieder Butzmann, Valérie Castan, Manuel Coursin, Nicole Dembélé, Nathan Fuhr, Frédéric Gies, Christian Kesten, Heather Kravas, Antonija Livingstone, Andrea Neumann, Stefan Pente, Isabell Spengler, Steffi Weismann, William Wheeler and Henry Wilt, among others
Concept, performance, composition and choreography: Antonia Baehr
Artistic collaboration and choreography: Valérie Castan
Dramaturgy: Lindy Annis
Sound and music composition: Manuel Coursin
Lighting design and technical management: Sylvie Garot
Administration: Ulrike Melzwig, Alexandra Wellensiek
Production: make up productions
Co-production: Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Les Subsistances, Lyon
With the support of the cultural administrations of Berlin and Ausland, Berlin
– FUNDACIÓ ANTONI TÀPIES
This show is part of the “re.act.feminism #2 a performing archive” exhibition, organised by Bettina Knaup and Beatrice Ellen Stammer.
