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Review 3, 1-9: All the World's a Tanztage
Festival Provides Stage for Choreographers Young and Old
By Julia Ritter
Copyright 2003 Julia Ritter
BERLIN -- By now, we've
all been taught that there are millions of differently shaped snowflakes
and maybe even also heard the notion that Eskimos have more than
a hundred words for snow. As Berlin is dusted in tiny flakes and
the temperatures across Europe plunge, Tanztage Berlin (Dance Days
Berlin) kicks off this month, laying down a multitude of diverse
and inspired performances before an enthusiastic audience at Sophiensaele.
Snow is a good metaphor
for Tanztage, now hosting its twelfth edition, thanks to Barbara
Friedrich, its founder and producer. The festival has come a long
way since the early years, when Friedrich was warned no one would
come out in January to sit in the drafty factory/theater spaces
that regularly host alternative dance, particularly when their pockets
were just emptied by the holidays. Forging ahead with a commitment
to produce artists from Berlin and throughout Germany exclusively,
Friedrich also began offering an opportunity to those she calls
"the youngsters" -- students -- to take the stage. Now both the
festival and the Program of Young Choreographers are wildly popular,
with standing room only each night I attended last week. Friedrich
is somewhat of a guardian angel in the Berlin dance scene, watching
over and out for newcomers in a town busting at its seams with movers
and makers. She understands the challenges facing emerging artists
who need funding and presentation, yet who are stymied by a lack
of press coverage, finding it almost impossible to get a foot in
the door, literally and figuratively. Tanztage is an act of faith
in the importance of experimentation by both Friedrich's team and
the public.
Sophiensaele, a well-known
venue in Berlin-Mitte that presents its own mix of performances
throughout the year, is hosting the festival this year. I hiked
up the stairs of the cavernous space (home to the worker's union
before World War I) to see Hans-Werner Klohe's "Alone Within Alone,"
on a shared program with Nicole Beutler's "Sonntag." Uncovering
the body's fragility in response to a speedy world, Klohe mixed
up his choreography, finely etched whirls and sharp spokes danced
by Alice Gartenschlager and Su-Mi Jang, with a score played out
by vocal artist Christian Reiner. These three ardent performers
first appeared together, their barely perceptible whispers accompanying
a tension-filled attempt to walk downstage while staying constantly
connected and changing their grips. Gartenschlager and Jang broke
into crisp foot patterns and Reiner swallowed words, gulping them
down greedily as here and there a renegade tone slipped out, sung
in a clear tenor.
Reiner is a strong mover
himself, yet most finely commands his voice, bending it to yield
tight, constipated sounds and then letting all blow open with a
throat-scalding tirade. Klohe roiled Reiner's vocal score into a
turbulent stew, and coated his dancer's movements until they were
rendered so heavy they had to toss themselves with exertion in order
to reach two boxes of light, gracefully sculpted by designer Benjamin
Schalike. Here Gartenschlager brought her head down lightly on each
of her partners, and tried to listen for their next move. But they
just toyed with her, singing a song she didn't know, keeping her
at a distance although she sat right beside them. When they finally
split, Jang fastidiously drew out the parts of her body, demonstrating
their correct relationship to one another in a short funny solo
while the two others teamed up to keep track of time with high-pitched
notes. When Gartenschlager finally left Reiner, he suddenly malfunctioned,
sputtering and spewing globules of noise. Klohe sensuously merged
the two women like icy eels, polished and slipping from each other's
grasp until they settled into a disturbing two-headed creature,
with Jang's frighteningly blank face staring out at the audience.
The figure creptits quiet way through the space, working against
Reiner's utterances, now a vicious rant. The women creatures' progress
was so quietly affecting that I wanted Reiner to shut up until it
all came together for me to see that he was she and she was it --
all one in the form of a harbinger from some sad and angry world.
Beutler's "Sonntag,"
in the second half of the evening, was an experiment with women
between the ages of 48 and 74 whom the choreographer met at a Tanztee,
a meeting for lovers of movement and dance. These women, a few of
whom have had professional performance careers, came forward with
their proclamations of life, movement and desire, mixed with sections
of stylized line dances. I'm not sure if this experiment worked
-- the audience responded well but I couldn't help feeling self-conscious
that I was forced to keep a respectful attention. More effective
were three or so frozen moments that stretched unfettered by the
performers or the audience. The complete silence was glorious and
I was calmed by each second that passed, feeling like my mind and
attention were rewinding for once, rather than always churning forward.
Beutler had wanted men as well as women to participate in the project,
and plans on trying again elsewhere in Germany.
Back to snow: Some know
it as that fuzzy stuff that appears on the television, usually the
result of a disturbance or weak signal. That kind of confused visual
was certainly apparent in the work on the Program for Young Choreographers
I was able to catch, featuring dance makers still understandably
still figuring out what questions to ask of their bodies and what
to do with the answers. While audiences cheered them all on, a cleverly
wrought performance by Kristen Schmitt in Modjgan Hasheman's "Day
In, Day Out" and the work of the group Chat interested me most.
The four members of Chat, Anna Berndtson, Bruno Kucis, Ann-Marie
von Loew and Verena E. Weiss, fought for concentration amidst disturbance
in "All is Not Right," demonstrating the evening's strongest sense
of structure in their work, which explored a world suddenly tipped
sideways. They created a wonderful place of weirdness with bright-layered
costumes, the whole resembling a snowy paperweight, all shook up
inside. What is most exciting about the Program of Young Choreographers,
besides the support of the audience, is the juxtaposition of these
"youngsters" with artists nurtured by participation in previous
festivals, revealing a clear progression of growth. If only for
this reason, it stands as a clear affirmation of the importance
of annual festivals as one way for emerging artists to gain experience
and clarity of vision through public exchange.
Performances still to
come at the festival include Josephine Evrard and Andreas Muller's
"Der Schwamm," which features a world constructed of 6,000 sponges,
and "Dual-Bodies," presented mid-festival by Walli Hofinger and
the deliciously limber Ingo Reulecke. Don't miss video artist Heinz
Kasper's bathtub running over with projections of five tiny, naked
dancers, upstairs near the bar. Grab a hot gulhwein and take in
the rest of Tanztage until January 25, 2003. Please click here for schedules and information.
Julia Ritter is an assistant professor of dance at Mason Gross
School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She is working through
a Fulbright Scholar Award in Germany for 2002-2003 and is the artistic
director of Julia Ritter Performance Group.
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