PERMEANCE – a residency in the Czech countryside
My work with Slovak choreographer Alica Minar continues. After we had started a test balloon last year and explored working with text and dance in first steps in her production EXPLOSION, we were able to mutually confirm that we are interested in a continuation of our collaboration.
In Alica’s new project PERMEANCE, we set ourselves more ambitious goals.
In Alica’s new project PERMEANCE, we set ourselves more ambitious goals. The project is a coproduction of the Slovak organisation Alica Minar & coll. c.s. and raum4-netzwerk für künstlerische alltagsbewältigung e. v. from Leipzig and Berlin. The international collaboration encompasses not only financing and the cast of the three dancers but will also manifest in the artistic form. The key word here is multilingualism. This is particularly exciting since this subject is on my slate anyway (cf. Drama Panorama). Together with Katarína Bakošová of Alica Minar & coll., I will be writing text. As already happened in EXPLOSION, the ensemble will contribute text or incite their creation too. That is exciting already since the English that we use for communication is not a steadfast ground. That is also true for the rehearsals that began recently with a two-week residency in the Czech village of Komařice.
Not all dancers speak Czech or Slovak but instead, for example, Spanish. All in all, the production will feature six languages: Czech, Slovak, English, French, German and Spanish. It is my ambition to make these an experience on stage. I say experience because not all of them need to be audible. Anyhow, the question will be in what forms the texts will be made perceivable. We want to and must experiment with different forms: apart from texts spoken in the moment, there may be texts played back, something we tried in EXPLOSION already. These can, other than live voices, be edited and made strange. And text may, of course, also be read, e. g. in the form of projections – or why not even in print handed out to the audience?
Why multilingual? For productions using various languages, these translation tasks are always an effort, and a costly one at that. But first, multilingualism on stage reflects very practically our production reality. For the performers, it enables a personal, more immediate expression in their respective first languages. Moreover, the use of several languages raises the production value by increasing the esthetic diversity. It raises the level of perception and appreciation of the Other and makes curious of something that is yet unknown.
Choreography: Alica Minar
Dramaturgy: Lenka Vořechovská
Dancer: Johana Šilarová, Lenka Vořechovská, Nica Storey a.k.a. Fifi Fantôme
Text: Katarína Bakošová, Henning Bochert
Dates
04.+05.09.2021 | 6 pm Garden of Studio Alta / West Wing of Invalidovna, Prague, Czech Republic
07.+08.09.2021 | 6 pm Uferstudios, Berlin, Germany
More dates here.
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