Nature Morte - The Happy Living Trilogy #2
Duo with video projection
Together with the two dancers, Viviana Escalé and Valenti Rocamora i Torà, and Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola, Thiersch develops a vocabulary of movement in Nature Morte that seeks the creatural form within dance. The choreography spurs reflection on people, nature and animals whose proposed movements brush with each other, but are also similar. Undescribed locations (cf. non lieu by Marc Augé) with no evolved history or identity form the backdrop to Nature Morte. Following the laws of movement research, video artist Martin Rottenkolber visually zooms in on our near environment, alternating between domestication and wildness. Nature Morte describes how dead a person can be in nature and how lively nature can be in a person.
Cast:
Concept/Direction: Stephanie Thiersch
Choreography: Stephanie Thiersch in collaboration with Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola
Dance/Choreograpy: Viviana Escalé, Valenti Rocamora i Torà
Video/Stage: Martin Rottenkolber
Sound: Deathprod, Joseph Suchy
Costumes: Sabine Schneider
Technical Direction/Light Design: Niko Moddenborg
Video Operator: Peter Rachel
Photography: Martin Rottenkolber
Credits:
MOUVOIR in co-production with freihandelszone ensemblenetzwerk köln, tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf
funded by: Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes NRW, Kulturamt der Stadt Köln, Kunststiftung NRW, RheinEnergie Stiftung und SK Stiftung Kultur
Stephanie Thiersch develops an artificially changing dance for her characters comprising articulated motions that evoke impaired motor movements. They hark back to man’s evolutionary history and describe in dramatic terms the solitude of the protagonists: the courageous yet radical description of a “dead” environment in which man’s creations run wild. (AKT)
Her choreography does not need to resort to pretentious gestures – the actions develop authentically. What emerges is a very personalised form of movement sequences. “Nature Morte” is a small, fine piece of dance artistry. Opinionated, but at the same time stylistically commanding and very finely done. (choices)
A touching, powerful scenario with raw, lumbering inhabitants from a twilight world from the edge of the lawn. As if they’d forgotten how to live as people and failed as animals. (Melanie Suchy, Rheinische Post)
Nature Morte is a heartfelt rendition of life in unlife, touchingly balanced on the neither/nor, between life and unlife. (3/12 tanz, Zeitschrift für Ballett, Tanz und Performance)
