Under Green Ground
Dance performance (Version 2010)
Dance performance (length 65 min): 1 dancer, 3 technicians
Under Green Ground in the year 2010 stands for a different way of physicalness: we see movements that have been inscribed in the body of its protagonist. Unchanged though is the intransigence in the way Alexandra Naudet presents herself on stage: she reveals herself to the audience and gives a piece of herself away.
The world as image and conception: In the age of the media there is no immediate self. Role models determine our identity and our thinking. However, the great multiplicity of potential roles also creates a new, special kind of liberty. Together with her choreographic partner and dancer Alexandra Naudet, the Cologne choreographer and media artist Stephanie Thiersch explores the complicated interaction of idea and flesh; of image-memory and the female body. A test arrangement for which she finds breathtaking, very concrete visual transformations; enigmatic, slightly morbid and provocative like a fashion shoot or a film by David Lynch.
No matter whether Alexandra Naudet as Botticelli´s Venus; as the naked woman in Manet´s “Breakfast in the Open Air”; or as a porn queen – her fantastic presence and charisma gives the subversive game with identity just as much depth as down-to earth quality. As an ironic effect, her various personas are interrupted by a persistently pottering technical crew. Especially the stage manageress emerges as a threatening competition for the main actress – right up to the showdown, with sparks flying.
concept/choreography: Stephanie Thiersch
choreography/dance: Alexandra Naudet
technical direction: Ansgar Kluge/Niko Moddenborg
stage management/dance: Weronika Pelcynska
light technician: Thomas Grzegorcyzk
lightning/stage design: Niko Moddenborg, Stephanie Thiersch
production management: Lieve De Scheerder
co-production: tanzhaus nrw
in cooperation with koelnertanzagentur e.V.
funded by Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes NRW, Kulturamt Stadt Köln and SK Stiftung Kultur Köln
A terrific solo, which erotic and brutal beauty one cannot easily forget.
(Kölner Stadtanzeiger)
An evening that displays with intelligence and a directness full of relish the richness of expression of the human body.
(Kölner Rundschau)
Stephanie Thiersch builds up figures in slow motion; one outgrows another, and
dismantles the beautiful facade until there is nothing left except for a silent cry. The icon
collapses back upon herself – ecce homo. Naudet interprets fiercely cut female images in
close-up view with great intensity.
(ballettanz international)
(…) an equally intelligent and sensuous production (…) A panopticum of female self-staging
as if it was an eerie-pretty men’s dream.
(Kölnische Rundschau)
In her choreography, Stephanie Thiersch virtuously plays with the tension between
identity and public woman… And the pick of the bunch: Alexandra Naudet keeps all of it
together: the female, the images, her dynamics and sex.
(Kölner Stadtanzeiger)
Thiersch succeeds a contemporary surrealism, which drives its motives with force and
easiness through a neo-punk world of scenes. …Alexandra Naudet seizes the
choreography in a terrific manner through a tenacious debate with the images that she
actuates.
(tanzjournal)
