Reflections of IN BETWEEN FESTIVALS by Stiftung Zukunft Berlin

CONTENTS

PREFACE Dr Reinhard Schweppe

IN BETWEEN FESTIVALS Uli Kempendorff & Marc Schmolling

THE MADNESS AND METHODS OF THE BODY REFLECTIONS ON THE NEEDS OF POLISH CHOREOGRAPHY Anna Nowak

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE…, OR ABOUT MAKING JOINT EFFORTS Karolina Wycisk

MOVING THE MIRROR A talk between Agnieszka Sosnowska, Joanna Leśnierowska and Peter Pleyer

HOW TO DESIST EFFECTIVELY? CHOREOGRAPHING THE IN-BETWEEN Magdalena Zamorska

ON IMPROVISATION Tom Arthurs

WASTE MATTERS Agata Siniarska

TO ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF NOT KNOWING. HOW IMPROVISATION INFLUENCES MY WAY OF MAKING PERFORMANCE Hermann Heisig

LIST OF VENUES

MAP OF VENUES

PHOTO GALLERY

PREFACE Dr Reinhard Schweppe Responsible for the Neighbours in Europe Initiative

The European Capital of Culture Year in Wroclaw and the 25th anniversary of the German-Polish friendship gave rise to the ‘Berlin-Wroclaw 2016. European Neighbourhood.’ project initiated by the Zukunft Berlin Foundation. Cultural contributions from Berlin in the context of the European Capital of Culture, Wroclaw, sought to expand cultural exchange in the two cities despite the difficult political circumstances between Germany and Poland. The overall project encompassed a wide range of artistic projects, events and exhibitions in Berlin and Wroclaw. One of the two anchor projects were the IN BETWEEN FESTIVALS, which established successful cooperation between Berlin and Wroclaw through a variety of artistic events. Throughout the year of 2016, a total of 108 Berlin artists from the fields of contemporary jazz and contemporary dance performed in 32 groups or productions in Wroclaw as part of the series. In this publication, artists involved in the project reflect on the work created. The publication thus builds on the IN BETWEEN FESTIVALS series, while also laying the foundation for further cross-border exchange. Besides German and Polish, it is also provided in English – thus in keeping with the theme of promoting sustainable connections. Trust has been created as a result of the cultural collaboration between the two cities. Following the example of the Berlin-Stettin/West Pomerania Round Table founded in 2015, the first preparation meeting for a Berlin/Wroclaw Round Table took place in October 2017. It deals with topics that go far beyond culture and offers a springboard for further consolidating

IN BETWEEN FESTIVALS Uli Kempendorff Marc Schmolling

Marc Schmolling and I have been connected to the Berlin scene in a myriad of ways for many years. Not only as players but as organizers and promoters (Marc as the founder of the Berlin Jazz Kollektiv and me as the founder of the concert series Serious Series), as political organisers and almost more importantly, as listeners and close followers of the developments the music in Berlin has taken in the last twenty years. We have watched as clubs started to pop up in Prenzlauer Berg and close again with growing gentrification and move to Neukölln and beyond. They became the places where most of the new influx of musicians played and where most of the new developments in the music took place. Since then, these new sounds have been heard far and wide – international festivals have dedicated days of their program specifically to the “Berlin Sound” and its younger and more seasoned proponents have become mainstays on stages and residencies in the whole world. In turn it has lead to more young musicians moving to Berlin to capture some of its energy and to develop their music here. For us, most of the interesting developments have taken place in “contemporary” or “creative” Jazz and Improvised Music and where these stylings meet. For In Between Festivals in Wroclaw we wanted our program to reflect the many facets of this music. Since conquering new places for art (or newly conquering old places for art) has been part of improvising in Berlin, we had seen many of the artists we invited to Wroclaw in the most varied of settings. For example, I saw and heard the double bass quartet Sequoia perform for the first time in an abandoned old safe factory in Berlin-Wedding, which had been turned into the temporary art space Mica Moca for a summer in 2011. The Jazz Kollektiv decided to stage one of their festivals as well. So we knew that this band would work perfectly at a place like Miser Art in Wroclaw, as the musicians in it are very conscious of the space they play in and how they interact with it. We wanted to bring established forces of international acclaim to Wroclaw, like Aki Takase and Rudi Mahall, as well as new mavericks like Christian Lillinger or Kathrin Pechlof, Almut Kühne and Philipp Gropper. We put an emphasis on original music or, when there were “covers” or “standards” in the program on an unmistakably original way to approach them, such as Aki Takase or Ibadet Ramadani have taken. We tried to pair special groups with special places, as mentioned with Sequoia above and as further illustrated with Kathrin Pechlof’s Trio of harp, alto saxophone and double bass at Lokietka 5, Oliver Steidle’s “Killing Popes” at the alternative, punk-rooted initiative CRK and my group Field at an outdoor summer concert in a yard in Nadodrze. At the same time, there were also older bonds to reaffirm: Olaf Rupp had played in Wroclaw before, at OPT’s Solo concert series. So had Frank Gratkowski and Gebhard Ullmann, much

longer ago. Frank’s concert with Andrea Parkins at Miser Art was a perfect fit of place, music and vibe. For line-ups which needed a more traditional setting because they included a grand-piano, we were lucky to find a great partner in Club Firlej. The opening night with a double bill of Philipp Gropper’s Philm and a solo performance by Wroclaw native and drummer Kuba Suchar was a wonderful night. Firlej also hosted Marc Schmolling’s Ticho with British-born Trumpeter Tom Arthurs and Almut Kühne, as well as the rousing final night of the series with Christian Lillinger’s Grund and Golden Escort. The latter concert was co-sponsored by Wroclaw’s Jewish community, which Firlej got involved in an effort to make a double bill happen with Krakow’s Jasha Lieberman concert. Envoys of the community were thrilled by Golden Escort’s approach to their musical heritage and will ask them back to the city. The music ranged from the pure improvised music of Olaf Rupp’s Solo guitar to the complex modern Jazz of Philm, from the hard and driving prog-rock of Killing Popes to the delicate Harp Trio of Kathrin Pechlof and from the free-flowing dance and music symbiosis of the double bass quartet Sequoia with the Butoh dancer Yuko Kaseki to the rigorous poetry of Christian Lillinger’s Grund. As it happens with Berlin’s scene, the concert serie’s line-up was also very international: we had musicians and one dancer from Japan, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Denmark, Austria, Russia, Canada, France, Albania, the U.S. and Germany, of course. With all the differences in style and origin, there is, or at least we’d like to think there is, a sense of community among the musicians in Berlin. Everybody has known each other for a long time and people have worked together here to create the environment which makes a scene a scene: organize concerts and festivals, organize politically, visit each other’s concerts, jam together, experiment together, build up the same venues together, complain and bicker together and celebrate together. For some of the musicians who played in Wroclaw this has been a two-decade-long process. In a city like Berlin which has had so many new starts with walls, no walls, bubbles growing and bursting and growing gentrification over the last decades, and which has, in this music at least, few to no institutions anchoring a scene, it’s the communities which artists themselves start and keep going with the help of some important venues which make the difference. And these communities can propel a scene to the forefront of what is happening in this music in Europe. At least in Berlin, there has been a sense of community across the borders of certain villages – age, styles, public acknowledgement and success, etc. We felt that especially by combining most of the series’ concerts with sets by artists from Wroclaw and other cities in Poland, it is this positively subversive energy of which we intended to bring something to Wroclaw and we hope that it planted a little seed either to connect our two cities more or to show some future ways of collaboration for places and musicians in and from Wroclaw. Most of the pairings were very successful and musically inspiring, the afore-mentioned Kuba Suchar and Jascha Lieberman Trio, but also Zbigniew Kozera and Mateusz Rybicki who played duo before Andrea Parkins and Frank Gratkowski; LXMP who played on the same bill as Killing Popes and Piotr Łyszkiewicz Trio, who performed the same night as Kathrin Pechlof.

IN BETWEEN FESTIVALS | ULI KEMPENDORFF & MARC SCHMOLLING

Aki Takase FIELD IN BETWEEN FESTIVALS | ULI KEMPENDORFF & MARC SCHMOLLING

THE MADNESS AND METHODS OF THE BODY — REFLECTIONS ON THE NEEDS OF POLISH CHOREOGRAPHY Anna Nowak

The year-long cycle of presentations of contemporary choreography and music known as In Between Festivals was one of the initiatives launched upon the appointment of Wrocław as the European Capital of Culture 2016. In line with the premise put forward by Christophe Knoch, the curator of the cycle, the regularity of events, the accompanying workshops and meetings with the audience, as well as the selection of featured artists and venues – various institutions scattered across Wrocław – have all been meant to bring the Wrocław dance scene (or, more generally, the Polish dance scene) closer to its Berlin counterpart. As a Polish choreographer educated in Berlin, and an observer of ongoing movements and transformations in contemporary performing arts, my article will focus on the dance component of In Between Festivals. In particular, I will examine the significance of methodology in disambiguating ephemeral choreographic structures and lending them with weight and meaning, both on the artistic and social level. This analysis will be accompanied by themes associated with such notions as unilateral influence and spectral interrelations between creative processes and their outcome. The idea to reflect on working methodologies in choreography as applied in Wrocław and Berlin was born during a conversation with Christophe Knoch and choreographer Agata Siniarska shortly before the beginning of In Between Festivals. We assumed that the younger and underdeveloped Polish choreography had not yet worked out the language, tools, and structures that would adequately refer to its processes. Thus, we came up with the idea to supplement festival presentations with meetings between artists and audiences, devoted to working tools, contexts, and notions related to the presented pieces. Another more pragmatic way to introduce the Wrocław audience to the choreographic methods and practices was a series of open workshops led by invited choreographers. These accompanying events were intended as a means to expand the reception of contemporary choreography in a city whose audience rarely communes with this performing art. Looking back at this initiative, it is vital to emphasize that what I find interesting is not so much talking about the differences between the working methodologies in choreography in Berlin and Poland – such a division seems fictional, if only because some of the invited choreographers divide their time between Berlin and Poland – but rather contemplating the significance of methodology as a tool legitimizing a given artistic or cultural field, i.e. a measure enabling them to become a separate discipline, sparking vital interest from cultural institutions and funding entities. Another intriguing subject is the possible secondariness in Polish thinking about choreography in the context of Berlin/German/

West-European tradition and achievements in the field. The reflection on choreographic practice is relatively new in Poland, yet in the past several years it has yielded at least a handful of interesting manifestations, among others a co-project organised by the Burdąg Foundation and Creative Work Studio in collaboration with the Institute of Music and Dance, titled “Badanie/Produkcja. Rezydencje. Taniec w procesie artykulacji” [Research/Production. Residencies. Dance in the Process of Articulation], which encourages practical and theoretical cooperation between young dance researchers and choreographers. Publications created in the process are available at taniecpolska.pl and dwutygodnik.pl1. Another worthwhile initiative involves presentations of works in progress and feedback sessions with audiences, initiated by the Warsaw-based collective of choreographers Centre in Motion. I could also mention two projects by curator and dramaturge Mateusz Szymanówka: the online-based Choreographic Think Tank2, assembling conversations with Polish choreographers on their working methodologies; and the publication accompanying the presentations of new choreographies, titled “Powrót (do) przyszłości” [Back (to) the Future], issued by the Jan Tarasin Gallery in Kalisz3. The publication focuses on the links between contemporary choreography and performance; moreover, it enables insights into the working methodologies of the invited artists by publishing their notes, texts, and drawings. The recent years have also seen more and more academic texts published on choreographic methodologies in the context of broadly defined cultural phenomena. Some of the prominent authors in this respect include Teresa Fazan, Magdalena Zamorska, Karolina Wycisk, Katarzyna Słoboda, Tomasz Ciesielski, among others. The above examples by no means exhaust the scope of initiatives launched lately to disseminate knowledge on contemporary (Polish) choreography and, by extension, to bridge the glaring gap between Polish theoretical discourse on visual arts or theatre, and that on contemporary dance. I deliberately refer to it as “glaring” to signal the need to acknowledge the status of choreography as an autonomous field – one that draws from the theatrical tradition and, in the past twenty years, also from visual arts, without becoming derivative of these disciplines and – consequently – one that often requires a different language of description along with new tools of reception by its audience. When it comes to conferring status and meaning on things, the two are inseparably connected to the requirement of articulation, systematization and inventory. In other words, creating a significant theoretical discourse on choreography and its methodologies – modelled after other disciplines – is an important argument for the development of dance and choreography in Poland (as of now belated in comparison with Berlin and Western Europe) and the improved recognition of performing arts and their public in Poland. This cause-and-effect reasoning is motivated with a certain dose of optimism as to the current dynamic development of dance in Poland, though it may turn out to be somewhat ambivalent if it annexes traditional hierarchies and divisions (into meaning and association, language and movement, etc.) pursuant to which respective phenomena are legitimized by the authority of rational analysis and methodological order. I do not claim, naturally, that the interest in choreography developed by cultural studies scholars or representatives of related disciplines (e.g. theatre) acts to its detriment – it is quite the reverse. What I do intend to point out is the importance of recognising diverse choreographic languages as capable of speaking of themselves and the affects

Examples of such publications can be found in the text on the case of Maija Raumanni and Antti Helminen, published online: http://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/5387-badanieprodukcjarezydencje-w-poszukiwaniu-calosci.html and in Renata Piotrowska’s “Death. Exercises and Variaitons”: http://www.dwutygodnik.com/ artykul/5517-badanieprodukcja-rezydencje-pozycja-trupa.html

Cf. http://ttch.pl

The online version of the publication can be found at: https://issuu.com/tarasin/docs/powrotdoprzyszlosci

THE MADNESS AND METHODS OF THE BODY | ANNA NOWAK

and relationships they generate with their audiences: ones that exceed the reasoning and analyses (of movement, language, relations, meaning) typical of, e.g., dramatic theatre. In this sense, the category of methodology borrowed from the academia can, on the one hand, invite greater clarity – acting as a promise to divulge a creative mystery – while, on the other hand, it may arouse anxiety of having to justify the value of one’s work and subjecting it to norms. Ana Vujanović, Serbian performing arts theorist, conceptualises method in arts and other disciplines in the following way4 : Method is – in general – a manner, procedure or technique of doing, creating or producing something, especially in accordance with an established plan and in an orderly and systematic way. In the art, humanities and science, methods are used in both the process of research and presentation. In natural sciences, one of the most famous methods is the experiment. It is widely present in contemporary art and psychology as well. Then, in ethnography, there is the method of field research, in sociology – inquiry, in psychotherapy – psycho-drama, in medicine – ultrasound treatment, in drama theatre and film – Stanislavski method, in marketing – focus group interview, etc, etc… When the plan and methods are clear, then one can evaluate their achievements according to the intrinsic value – What I wanted to do and how compared with what I did and how – and not only external appraisal and critique. The self-reflective evaluation should also show if the method employed was appropriate or not, to which extent, etc… and if we want to use it again next time in a similar situation (or not). The aspects pointed out here include systematic approach, experimentation, process, and evaluation. Such an approach also assumes that the artistic process conducted according to a specific methodology is subject to the law of causality and oriented towards achieving a particular goal. Such goal comes with choreographic works – products – in which the process culminates along with an ex post reflection on the making of the work. Method involves a blueprint and systematic mapping, as well as clarity and consistency in its execution. In other words, according to the traditional, academic understanding, method assumes a significant level of judgment and control over the course of procedures, and the application of methodological tools. While all of the above sounds theoretically convincing, practical experience in working with dance and choreography seems to suggests that when asked, “What have you been up to in the studio today?,” in particular at the early stages of the creative process, our answer tends to sound like, “I don’t know, I’ve been meddling with things.” In Monster Method, American choreographer Eleanor Bauer recalls the words of Trajal Harrell: “What will you do when you come to the studio? There’s nothing to do there!” Harrell adds, “This empty room gives us nothing, nothing beyond space and time; a sterile luxury.”5 To what extent, and on what practical level, then, is it possible to negotiate between methodological

The quoted definition comes from the guidelines for third year students of dance/context/choreography at Berlin’s Inter University Center for Dance, formulated for

E. Bauer, Monster Method, http://sarma.be/docs/1341

a colloquium on students’ individual choreographic work. I wish to thank Julia Plawgo for rendering the cited excerpt available.

THE MADNESS AND METHODS OF THE BODY | ANNA NOWAK

orderliness and control, on the one hand, and improvisation, suspension of judgment, and intuition in performing arts, on the other? In the aforementioned text, Bauer notices that concentration on method in today’s performing arts discourse is perhaps accompanied with the familiar division into process and product, and its presumed anti-capitalist implications. She also points out that, as a systematic procedure, method guarantees the achievement of a particular, predefined goal. Process, on the other hand, is traditionally associated with something unspecific and multidimensional, evoking the continuity of natural and biological function. In this sense, method and, more broadly, methodology, may function as a kind of warranty, a collateral protecting what we are working on from breaching the intended framework, or from misunderstanding. Hence the ambivalent status of method as a useful strategy of tracking and understanding the creative process, on the one hand, and as an authoritarian instance informed by its academic roots – one that confers meaning and value on arts, whose modes of production are not always coherent. In performing arts our media and means of making include, among other things: the body, some level of collaboration, communication, or co-construction when not working alone and hence a certain degree of inter-subjectivity, and memory – physical memory as well the mental traces of conceptual developments and progress. These are not media of consistency; we are dealing with materials that are always shifting and changing biologically and perceptually, and hence are not easily conducive to maintaining the consistency of a purely methodical procedure6. When thinking about the methodology of performing arts, one needs substantial flexibility. Everyone with practical background in choreography knows that when working on something, we are not always fully aware of the tools we are using, and why we are using them. Eleanor Bauer notices the value of method as a creative factor and agent of unrest, intended to generate performative problems, e.g. as has been the case in the choreographic practice of Deborah Hay. She also stresses the significance of the moment when we lose the awareness of the tools with which we work; when what takes place transcends the search for an answer or verification of method, thus leading us towards transformation. Or when we move as if blindfolded, without predefined methodology, and the unique procedure generates knowledge out of a lack of knowledge; methods as monsters – hybrids of predictability, intuition, and loss of control7. I tend to agree with Bauer when she writes that tools and methods are of great value in choreography, as they enable us to organise ideas and direct actions towards desirable effects. Still, I share Bauer’s suspicion towards the appropriation of academic terminology by the world of art to authenticate, justify, and objectify the products of artistic practice and modes of their production8. The matter seems particularly interesting and ambivalent in the current situation of dance and choreography in Poland. The development of reflection on working methodologies by dance artists themselves, as well as the advancement o theoretical analyses at universities or specialist press inspires optimism, since it attests to the growing interest in new choreography and the acknowledgement of its autonomy.

Ibid.

THE MADNESS AND METHODS OF THE BODY | ANNA NOWAK

In line with the traditional division into theory and practice, choreography in Poland is slowly but steadily institutionalising thanks to the efforts of the local community towards transforming choreographic tools and processes into a topic of public theoretical debate (conference, post-presentation artist talks) and publications. Under the circumstances, it should not be surprising that, much like in Germany, Great Britain, and other countries where performing arts theory is far more developed, the not-fully tangible knowledge drawn from the body, movement and their relations, sensations and affects requires legitimisation through written word and theoretic systematisation. Unfortunately, this also implies that the specific conditions necessary for the understanding and experiencing these fields of art – connected with their non-obvious internal logic and poetics, themselves not necessarily based on the production of meaning – must fit themselves in the traditional hierarchy of knowledge production, rather than pursue alternative solutions. One positive manifestation of reflection on choreographic methodologies is the establishment of a community centred around dance – including structures of collaboration and support – as well as independent performing arts venues, especially in Warsaw. At the same time, however, the interest in dance developed by its kin, theatre and visual arts, has not necessarily translated into understanding of working conditions and requirements of freelancer dance artists, when such artists are invited for collaborations in dramatic theatres or art galleries. The offer of the Wrocław-based In Between Festivals, whose repertoire has been arranged under the guiding principle of neighbourly relations between Wrocław and Berlin, has allowed us to examine the heterogeneity and mutuality of tendencies in today’s new choreography; thanks to the workshops and artist talks that accompany the featured events, it has also fostered insights into methodologies of contemporary choreography created in this part of Europe. Polish independent dance has a much shorter history than its German counterpart – it germinated upon the political transformation of 1989, along with the first and so far only programme supporting the development of contemporary choreographers in Poland, “Old Brewery New Dance” by the Art Stations Foundation (initiated by Joanna Leśnierowska in 2004, i.e. relatively recently). It should be noted that the vast majority of young dance artists on the Polish scene today – including those whose works have been presented in Wrocław – studied dance and choreography abroad, and thus their artistic practice cannot be abstracted from the impact of dance programmes and local artistic communities in Berlin, Amsterdam or Brussels. One can only quietly wish for the establishment of a programme in experimental choreography in Poland. Despite the unquestionable structural chasm that continues to exist between Polish and German dance, and consequently despite the inequality that informs this partnership –which itself reflects the former division into East- and West-European art (the interest in Polish choreography in Germany is likely not directly proportionate to the interest in German choreography in Poland – Polish contemporary choreography confidently utilises the network of broadly defined European dance, drawing freely from its resources, and steadily describing its own working and experience methods.

ibid.

THE MADNESS AND METHODS OF THE BODY | ANNA NOWAK

Agata Siniarska Agata Siniarska THE MADNESS AND METHODS OF THE BODY | ANNA NOWAK

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE…, OR ABOUT MAKING JOINT EFFORTS Karolina Wycisk

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE A GATEWAY TO ANOTHER DIMENSION To invoke the notions of active participation or performative presence at a time when art has become as participatory as possible seems almost obvious1. Still, the notion of effort undertaken within the frame of participation, and taking place on numerous levels of (joint) work, seems less evident. Based on the experience of participation in In Between Festivals, a cycle of Polish-German exchange of contemporary dance, visual arts, and jazz artists featuring monthly presentations, workshops and discussions, this text offers individualised feedback and post-project evaluation. Together with Ania Nowak, Agata Siniarska, and Magda Zamorska, I moderated a series of post-presentation artist talks. I am writing this text from the standpoint of a person engaged in the venture with respect to a critical follow-up of its methodology, so looking for ways to talk about dance was particularly important to me. Contrary to the remaining moderators, I am not a practitioner – a fact that affected the form of the aforementioned artist talks and the subjects taken up during these meetings. It must be admitted that the talks moderated by choreographers were more daring and deeply rooted in methodology, thus offering a different form of dance talk. One common field of experience for all of us was the meeting with the audience, and the effort of participation.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE A GAME IN WHICH EVERYONE WANTS TO KILL YOU, WHILE YOU TRY TO RUN AWAY Following the presentation of “[...,]” Agata Siniarska and Diego Agullo’s performance, the moderator (Siniarska) proposed an experiment a participatory audience, in which audience members assumed the roles of a choreographer, performer, musician, stage designer, and dramaturge. Selected audience members took to the stage, symbolically assuming the roles of artists. Conversely, the

Jacques Rancière and Claire Bishop are some of the names immediately associated with the notion. Owing to the character of my ruminations, these authors do not figure directly in my text, although their concepts did accompany its creation.

moderator-choreographer sat in the audience, taking up the role of the observer, recipient. She was asking questions concerning […,], which the audience members addressed from the stage as if they were the authors of the piece. Their participation in the experiment involved the effort of analysis and imagination, engagement in the performed role, and the presentation of the (imaginary) script of respective actions. This game activated both those viewers who played artists, and the remainder of the audience, without whom the mechanism would not function properly (they were those who lent the event dramatic air by asking questions and provoking those engaged in the discussion). The experiment was an attempt at understanding the mechanisms of performance, a situation of openness and acceptance of various modes of perception and participation. Thanks to such a game, the performer consciously resigns from the role of an interpreter who presents and explicates their work, instead granting voice (and space) to the audience, who in turn assume responsibility for the event in which they partake. It is from this new perspective that the debate on dance takes place. The loosening of the frame of post-performance artist talks is a means to de-configure traditional roles and schemes, problematise methods of work, and develop a critical attitude to its effects (always formulated in a relational way). For when we withdraw from the moderator-company relation (which still dominates curatorial programmes), instead opening the discussion to the audience and engaging its members in the drama, we may observe a community at work. Engaging a short-term, affective community (appointed solely for the purposes of the meeting) in action facilitates new ways of being together for artists and audiences within the joint space of performance. As was the case with the discussion between Agata Siniarska and her audience, in which both parties assumed atypical roles and performed unfamiliar scripts. To make it all possible, though, one needs a joint effort, since each meeting between the artist and their audience entails “a continuously distributed, accumulated and divided, non-material experience in communal relations and capacities”2. This peculiar dramaturgy of collaboration results in undertaking a collective activity.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE AN INSECT EATING A PLANT The aforementioned example is one of many proposed scripts of games and audience meetings that transcend the “question and answer” format. The tasks may differ: as part of their feedback, the audience shares images-associations and notions which serve as a stepping stone for their talk with the artist; one may also organise a mini press conference; or engage the audience in planning the subsequent instalments of a given project, etc.3 The majority of these scenarios are based on affirmative feedback methods, with the discussion focusing mainly on what “worked,” thus stressing the effectiveness of performance without limiting it to value judgments. Ninety-nine percent of such methods (with the remaining one percent involving situations in which games are implemented in a way that f o r c e s everyone to participate) reformulate the presence of artists and audiences, whose roles are treated interchangeably, and whose experience is not devaluated by the other party. Still, the strategies of working (with) audiences involve the risk of rejection or withdrawal. As it also turned out in the course of the project, the assumed methods were not always efficient, and the viewers were reluctant in sharing their impressions straight after the presentation (strings of associations,

Bojana Kunst, Artysta w pracy. O pokrewieństwach sztuki i kapitalizmu, Warszawa–Lublin 2016, p. 63.

I used everybodys – an online platform-archive of “discourses, strategies, tools and games in the field of performing arts,” available at: http://everybodystoolbox.net/index.php?title=Publications

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE | KAROLINA WYCISK

first questions), refusing to participate in the discussion (save for a handful of people). Thus, the conversation was often limited to the confines of a standardised moderator-group relationship, thus stressing the failure of participation. Failing to make the effort by the audience further alerts us to the existence of schemes of participation in a theatre piece, upon the ending of which the audience must leave the building. That is perhaps why audiences are not used to extra-performance activity. Dividing “performance time” into the event proper (i.e. the presentation) and the accompanying events (other than the presentation), the latter tend to be associated with an inactive, passive, or expectant stance (waiting for something to happen by itself). Any changes to the formula of meetings would thus require a change in the approach towards participating in performances and perceiving them as a string of subsequent, parallel events involving everyone’s participation. This entails the necessity to lift the division into on-stage presentation and the attendant activities, such as research – audience talks do seem like the perfect occasion to verify and negotiate the artist’s premises. This is what the feedback effect involves – by admitting viewers to partake in the unfinished process, one simultaneously enables its continuation thanks to the feedback obtained from the audience. Liz Lerman, choreographer and author of a feedback method known as critical response, emphasises that feedback sessions not only facilitate the artist in finding new inspirations or developing the existing material but also help them discover the aesthetic and performative potential behind the audience, one whose awareness may have been latent with the artist4. Interestingly, the method equally engages the artist and their audience, with both parties benefitting from the undertaken efforts. It also expands the boundaries and duration of a given performance outside of its on-stage presentation.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE A KALEIDOSCOPE OF QUOTATIONS Various forms of post-performance artist talks, especially those oriented towards bilateral participation, may result from the need of proximity between artists and viewers, or from the increasing visibility of artistic production processes. It is important to stress the effort made by the artist, who not only presents a finished piece, but also open it to other events, games and performances. Thus, art itself to a degree communicates itself within the frame of exposition (talks, panel discussions, lectures) and teaching strategies and methods used by artists (workshops). Bojana Kunst’s claim that artistic production has been increasingly more focused on language – speaking – and thus on communication, is an effect of transformations in the capitalist system, as described by Paolo Virno; these transformations also involve artists, audiences, and cultural production5. Virno underscores that the system is more and more interested in human sciences, based on its two pillars: speaking and thinking, both essential to the definition of its needs and goals6. Speaking (writing) is the foundation for today’s distribution of goods; it propels sales and creates competition. It is also a means of project evaluation and summary. Analogically, market strategies absorbed by artistic and cultural institutions find their reflection in dance and choreography. Hence the difficulty in imagining the lack of “accompanying events” – which frequently serve as a r e v i e w of the main programme – at any given festival. It is still more difficult to liberate these events from the label of secondary activities. Perhaps it is precisely through change

4 5

Cf. Lerman’s webiste: http://www.lizlerman.com/crpLL.html Cf. Bojana Kunst, The Economy of Proximity. Dramaturgical work in contemporary dance, “Performance Research” 2009, Vol. 14, Issue 3, pp. 81–88. Also available at: http://sarma.be/docs/2872.

Cf. Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude. For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life, Los Angeles/New York 2004.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE | KAROLINA WYCISK

at the level of language that one could redefine their identity, while the audience could approach them as an activity inherent to cultural performance such as a festival or a dance piece. Changing the format would require making an effort, though.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE A LABYRINTH WITHOUT EXIT Even if performance is based on renunciation of action, on performing passivity, idleness, waiting or inaction, then – in the words of Eva Meyer-Keller, an invitee to In Between Festivals – “the activity of making is a way of thinking”7, and thus – in each case – choreography remains a type of activity. Activity in this respect is understood as a collaboration of artists and viewers. Participation in performative activities is to an extent by definition based on joint effort, and therefore it is crucial that – within the scope of participants’ awareness – performance time engage not only the performer but also the audience themselves. The effort they undertake involves a form of labour, which in turn raises the issue of cultural exploitation. One cannot avoid it in the context of methods of work with audiences, as poignantly noticed by Bojana Kunst: An exchange of labour takes place between the audience and the museum (or any cultural institution which hosts artistic activities); the audience (using affects, communication, emotions, desire, forces aimed at distraction or organisation, collaboration, isolation, etc.) makes a certain effort, i.e. they take up certain work and produce a public sphere in the contemporary museum. The museum, in turn, develops and renders available a platform for what is considered public, enabling the audience to perform that work. The artist situates themselves in an inter-space as a social researcher or cognitive experimenter, while their work is subject to increasing curatorial supervision exercised by the cultural institution that strives to adapt their practice to the requirements of a “specific audience”8.

The specificity of this exchange would be based on orienting oneself towards, and educating oneself in, a given field of art. Conversely, under this concept, “inter-space” fittingly matches the character of In Between Festivals, in particular as an undertaking organised in between major events, on weekdays, i.e. between “festival-designated” weekends, in independent venues, under project implementation budgets situated between continuously subsidised institutions. As such, the project by definition becomes part of institutional and production “inter-space.” The organisers’ effort to create such space seems considerable and effective. The dramaturgy of In Between Festivals was based on the systematic and consistent implementation of the programme that levelled the gap between presentations and accompanying events – workshops and discussions – introducing another plane “in between” them.

The meeting was moderated by Agata Siniarska, following the presentation of Eva Meyer-Keller’s Death is certain.

Bojana Kunst, op. cit., p. 57.

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE | KAROLINA WYCISK

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE LOST HIGHWAY I was wondering how to archive the talks conducted as part of the project. Browsing through the recordings I jotted down the quotations that to an extent rendered the working methods of individual artists, wanting to include them in this article. However, it was the inactivity of the audience that became an impulse for this text and consequently became its main protagonist. Therefore, by performatively implementing the postulated joint effort with the audience, I wanted to emphasise its presence – each section of this text begins with a quotation from a member of the audience attending the meeting with Agata Siniarska. The task was banal – the audience were asked to complete the sentence, “This performance is like…” This type of participation was sufficient to open another plane of conversation on dance.

*** How does one talk about dance? Why does dance continue to be associated with something elusive, unaccountable? How should one talk about choreography to avoid “narrativization,” when choreography liquefies plots, resists structures, escapes stories? Choreographer and researcher Susan Lee Foster, famous for her “dancing” lectures, teaches choreography while remaining in motion. According to Foster, the body (“writing body”) as a characteristic field of representation possesses its own vocabulary of signification, syntax, and paradigms. Writing (speaking) and dancing are activities that demand corporeal presence; they both produce signs and meaning (although – to avoid unoriginal hermeneutics – apart from the sense, they also stress sensuality, corporeal matter), and are mutually complementary. Writing and dancing anticipates the production of utterances in a given context. According to Foster, it is a functional, productive relation/mediation between the verbal and non-verbal, the permanent and the ephemeral9. To illustrate her theory, Foster uses movement, action, and performance – her strategy can be applied to other contexts and discussions on dance and choreography. Perhaps the effort to speak is more important than the concept itself.

The series of three lectures can be watched online at: http://danceworkbook.pcah.us/susan–foster/index.html

THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE | KAROLINA WYCISK

Eva Meyer-Keller THIS PERFORMANCE IS LIKE | KAROLINA WYCISK

MOVING THE MIRROR A talk between Agnieszka Sosnowska ( AS ), Joanna Leśnierowska ( JL ) and Peter Pleyer ( PP ) — Atrium office of the Nowy Teatr, Warsaw, 24. 2. 2017

I would suggest first giving some background information on the project. How did it all start, what’s the story behind it?

Can you talk more about your relationship to Poland? I think that is the real background to the project. For me, it’s the starting point.

Ok, so, when I received money from the Hauptstadt Kulturfonds Berlin to make the piece Visible Undercurrent in 2014, I realised I could be a support for artists and choreographers in Berlin. I asked myself what the project I wanted to do the most would be. I really wanted to bring some German or Berlin-based dancers and Polish dancers together to collaborate on making a performance. I knew it should be a substantial group, more then 5 people. Through my involvement in the Polish dance scene over the last 20 years, working with Joanna in Poznan over the last 7 years, I’ve met dancers who I’ve really wanted to work with. Whenever I go teach workshops or companies, or when I’m invited to coach young dancers and choreographers, I often meet dancers and I say, “Wow, when I have money for a project, I will ask you to work with me”. That was the starting point for making a group piece that includes both Berlin and Polish dancers and which deals with their experiences, biographies and stories in their local, national and international scenes.

Yes, why Germany and Poland, and not other countries?

(laughs) I think I talk about love a lot in my work, and that’s a reason why I want to work with Polish dancers. I first was invited to Poland in 1997 by Hanna Strzemiecka, to teach with Eszter Gal and perform my work at Lublin Dance Theatre Meetings Festival. From that moment on, I was in love with Polish dance and with the Polish dancers I met in that festival.

What was dance there like, at that time ?

There was already a sense of community through this festival structure. People knew and supported each other, and I saw a lot of skill in the dancing. There were a lot of dancers who knew how to dance. I didn’t think the choreography was that interesting, but the dancers, and how they were living, how they were giving their hearts to dance – that was something that always struck me as especially beautiful. Already then, I saw that the majority of choreographers were male, rooted in very

traditional techniques, and that decisions were made from a very hierarchical point of view, by the companies’ leaders and the festivals’ directors, which was something very foreign to me, and the dance world that I was in. I do have a problem with power, not only a personal dislike of power structures in institutions from my upbringing in Germany, and in a very straight family, but more so, I was coming out of a dance education at the European Dance Development Center in Arnhem (NL), where I was taught a lot of techniques, body work methods, philosophies about the body and a lot of knowledge about making choreography that was egalitarian, striving towards democracy in the making, democracy of space and of body parts, in the voices to be heard in a group, in a spectrum, and in a company. These ideas are still relevant to me now, in the process of making “Moving The Mirror”, as underlying principles of my choreographic work. The next crucial moment in my relation to the Polish dance scene was when the German government supported a few years of cultural exchange between Poland and Germany. Büro Kopernikus and curators Edyta Kozak and Sabine Gehm invited me to a choreographic exchange as a German moderator between German and Polish artists, in 2005. By that time, not many people from Germany had been to Poland and seen Polish dance, so they offered me this position. It was here that Veronika Blumstein was born, a channel back into my choreographic work. AS

Veronika Blumstein is the artificial figure you created – a kind of a false narration showing an imaginary history connecting Germany and Poland. Did she appear because, in fact, you found no common ground between the two countries?

Yes, really, on the second day of that meeting in Jagniątków, we said: “Lets go home

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everybody. We are from different planets. We are coming from different traditions, from different belief systems about the body and what dance is and could be”. And then, during a night of vodka and beer, the figure of Veronika was born. JL

As the common ground.

A fictitious choreographer who contains more than one tradition, and in this imagination, our fantasies went wild and started to bloom. She was more like a catalyst for real ideas and real meetings, discussions, collaborations and reconstructions of her imaginary work. And that became interesting for curators too. There was a whole festival under Veronika’s name: “Moving Exiles”, in Bremen. K3 in Hamburg also invited Veronika to open the new Choreographic Center at Kampnagel in 2007.

Which is now celebrating its 10th anniversary.

That was really quite incredible. And with the reconstruction of her work, “Dancing Queen Meets Walkmanwords”, I was invited to the “Body/Mind” festival in Warsaw in 2009, where, on a panel of directors of Eastern European dance houses; I met Joanna for the first time. For me, this marked a shift into female leadership. As all of these dance house directors were women, I thought, this is a change to allow for other voices and collaborations. The other thing I remember well from that panel experience was that all of these women had different sources of money for their dance centers. One had a really good relationship with the mayor of the town who gave her money, another from the ministry of culture, another ran festival in Canada that she would always budget in a way that allowed her to collaborate with a center in Zagreb, and you, Joanna, you had a private mecenat from Grażyna Kulczyk and back up from the Art Stations Foundation.

Then the next step was the work with “The Solo Project” you invited me to coach in 2010 in Poznan. My position at the time as curator of the Tanztage Berlin Festival in Sophiensaele from 2008–14 allowed me to invite presentations from “The Solo Project” every year – with the help of the Polish Institute in Berlin – to strengthen the connection between the Polish and Berlin dance scenes. When I coached Anna Nowicka and Aleksandra Borys, we formed strong relationships and we keep these connections, still – they consult me, I consult them. The other connection is my teaching at the Alternative Dance Academy, part of Stary Browar Nowy Taniec program, where I met Paweł Sakowicz in 2015. I met all of the Berlin-based dancers in the project in teaching situations: Ollie Connew through “Smash” in Berlin, Caroline Alexander through “P.O.R.C.H” in Ponderosa and Ivan Ekemark through my guest professorship at the HZT Berlin. JL

The exception in the cast is Marysia Stoklosa, who you met in Poznan.

Yes, Marysia I’ve known for a longer time, because she was working in Berlin with Jeremy Wade, and I saw her perform in Sophiensaele in 2006. But I really got to know her in her own production “The Right Hemisphere”, – co-produced by Art Stations Foundation

I recommended her you to as a dramaturge.

Yes. This collaboration started a very fruitful dialogue about work and how we see things, that still continues. It led to the invitation to working as a dramaturge for this insane “Chopin Project” that represented Poland in the World-Expo in Shanghai in 2010, with 12 dancers and 70 musicians. So in this lineage, “Moving The Mirror” attempts to move through these generations of dancers in Poland: Maria, Anna and Aleksandra. The “youngest” is Paweł.

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What I found interesting from the beginning, was that instead of working on your own history with Poland with different Polish artists, you really wanted a project that would link the Berlin scene with the Polish scene, as there are still no direct working connections between the two communities, especially after you left Tanztage Festival. Could you tell us a little bit about the idea behind “Moving The Mirror”? It’s an interesting project that aims to look at one another and oneself, reflecting on history and community through the eyes of the other. This project could have easily just been a project in which you work with only Polish dancers, but there is the very important element of the Berlin community being involved. Where does this necessity for people to meet each other come from? Is it from the disturbing fact that there was no relationship before?

Bringing people together, the role of the mediator, is very close to me, I love to bring people together and provide parameters for the meeting to run smoothly. Maybe this is a generalization, but one could say that contemporary dance is international. The language and power of the body, not dependent on national languages, and neither on building a territory around spoken and written language, but instead, on building a territory around the body. It’s easy for everybody to work together in different places, countries and national circumstances. This is a big advantage that we need to put into our argumentation, and advocacy for the art form.

Can you imagine that this meeting could have been built around anything other than improvisation? Is it true that improvisation, as a method, becomes very important in “Moving The Mirror”?

Yes, I think the meeting could happen in different places and with different methods as well, but to go into the methodology we used

in the making of “Moving The Mirror” and say it equals “improvisation” would be much too general and random. It underlies a lot of groundwork in methods of improvisation, methods of composition and of perceiving and supporting choices. And these methods are really specific: Eva Karczag’s “Anatomical release”, Nina Martin’s “Ensemble Thinking”, Mary Overlie’s “Viewpoint theory”, Stephanie Skura’s “Politics of Method”, Nancy Stark Smith’s “underscore”, Lisa Nelson’s work on perception, Contact Improvisation and Barbara Dilley’s “Contemplative Dance Practice”. These made it very easy for the dancers and Michiel Keuper’s transient sculptures to meet. That is where the cat bites its tail: where the structures and methods make it easy for the performers to meet. Contact improvisation is one of the techniques I use a lot; not only as a physical form, but also as a way of understanding collaboration, understanding space and dependency on each other to make something different from what you can make on your own. Touch is a very easy tool to employ for meetings. You can get intimate very fast through touch, not only in contact improvisation but also within the very specific bodywork of Eva Karczag (anatomical release) that I use, where we open up possibilities of movement and articulation through touch. In the text “Politics of Method”, Stephanie Skura expresses a need for strong, independent dancers – performers who have their own life – an inner and outer life, to express towards each other and in relation to the audience. Ollie Connew, one of the Berlin-based dancers in the project, said that it was an incredible experience to include the audience in the performance through this understanding. We are here together in that room, we are doing this together. You are witnessing what is happening in the moment in which it happens. It is not pre-fabricated for you to consume. It is participation, collaboration, just like contact improvisation: we lean on the audience and

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the audience can lean on us, metaphorically, we could not do it without each other, only together. JL

Yes, I see that improvisation is one of your main loves and tools, but another part of your work is history and its lineage of not only improvisational, but set choreographic practices, present throughout the 20th century. Do you have your own methodology for how to work? How do you describe your work with history in your choreographic practices, especially in “Moving The Mirror”?

Mostly through other mediums. I usually provide a wide array of books, videos, DVDs, articles, magazines and online sources. After presenting this sometimes-overwhelming amount of material, I find what resonates with the group or with the individual performers, then dig deeper for specific examples, tasks, scores or people; laying out a wide range for people to pick and choose their interests. I never tell them exactly what to do, but I can hint towards people and methods I came in contact with through my education at the “European Dance Development Center” in Arnhem (NL) in the early 1990s.

It’s interesting to learn that history in your work is living. We have a tendency in art, when we work with history, to maintain a far distance to the time and period we invest in and research; we tend to bring it back from the dead, it seems. In your approach, I appreciate that you bring an understanding that history is now; that we stand on the shoulders of our colleagues and that knowledge is layered in our collective consciousness as artists and audiences. You bring it back as a heritage that is alive. I find this very important, especially working with young artists. In Poland, we suffer from a lack of description about our dance history, which actually traces back to the beginning of the 20th century, but we simply do not know about it and nobody has

written about it. There are so many blind spots in the history of Polish dance. I find it very important that we take our recent history seriously, and make sure that it doesn’t disappear, and that it will not share the fate of our ancestors. In between the wars, and the generation before 1989, interesting work was made, but behind the iron curtain and now they’re forgotten, even in their own country. When entering the stage, young artists and curators are often unaware that and have no means, nor the desire, of getting this information. In my eyes, it is very crucial to understand that history is alive, that it’s in our DNA and blood cells. PP

What resonates in this is a development of awareness of documentation of ephemeral material. In “Moving The Mirror”, I included visual art in the “contemplative dance practice”, as a tool for composition. It was the first time I invited a visual artist, Michiel Keuper, to meditate with us, to warm up with us and to make transient sculptures that appear in different moments of the show, to then disappear like the dance disappears. The documentation outcome is the many incredible photos from the process and performances. Now I can take a picture of “Moving The Mirror” and describe, in detail, the process, methods, relationships, and even what led us to that moment in time. I think that working with photography and visual art in the performance was a big part of “Moving The Mirror”, especially in a fine art setting, the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Warsaw

Coming back to the issue of history, what was striking and very present in the piece, was a gesture of community building, which isn’t necessarily a national community. It was strongly visible in the text spoken on stage by the Polish choreographers. We can hardly say that they are Polish, according to their national identity. None of them studied dance here in Poland, and Polish dance

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history is not their point of reference. The meeting with the other performers happens on another level, as also none of the Berlin based dancers/artists you invited are German; they are from Sweden, New Zealand, USA and the Netherlands. How do you touch upon the notion of history? JL

The history of the body…

I am a bit of a specialist in the history that started with and following the “Judson Dance Theater”, period, which is still in the canon of contemporary dance today, including in Poland, through the Remix program that brought attention to Merce Cunningham, Carolee Schneemann, Anna Halprin, Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer. In my education, I have danced and studied with artists that were past that history, a period I call the “Post-Judson avand-garde”. I intensively researched this for my group work “Visible Undercurrent” in 2014. I want to bring to attention all the methods and body practices those dancers and choreographers formulated in that time, which are only documented in a few history books. That is where my passion for collecting books and magazines comes in, especially the “Contact Quarterly” magazine (from 1975 – now) and the “Writings On Dance” magazine from Australia. Most of these artists are still alive, so it is a very living history, and in fact, I had a very nice email conversation after the project with Eva Karczag, Nina Martin, Stephanie Skura, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson and Barbara Dilley, reporting to them that we had worked very successfully with their methods, and that they were all extremely happy that their work is continuing to inspire dancers and choreographers, through my teaching and the works I make.

Most of the cast in “Moving The Mirror” you have been teaching before, in different workshops and schools, so the common ground between you was already established.

Was this a problem for you, that you were the “older wise man” in “Moving The Mirror”? I remember you reflecting on this…

There are two important things; one is the teaching aspect in my work. A journalist wrote of my work, and me, that she sees a “pedagogic eros”, a certain need and pleasure to teach. With that, comes a natural authority that people see in me, without being an authoritarian, teaching from the top down, but rather, horizontally approaching the practice.

Yes, I think the way you approach pedagogy and teaching is based more on sharing; Ranciere’s ignorant schoolmaster, rather than the old-school transferral of methods and skills. I see your care, your fascination and your love for supporting the development of your students, also through involving them in your artistic work. The way you teach creates a certain bond of mutual love and respect, which, in my view, makes you less of a master figure, and rather the father figure. I witness it whenever you come together on stage with your dancers.

How do you see the figure of a leader in this situation?

In some of the post-performance talks we had in Wroclaw, one of the dancers said “You gave us the freedom to do whatever we wanted as performers, but it was still very much your piece and your instigation”. I think that it is true. I initiated the project, brought my interests and information, the scores, this special way of touching and being intimate, the way of looking at one another, seeing each other, and, in the performances, the open relation and attitude towards the audience. All of that is very clearly my world. But all of the performers said they had never the feeling of blindly followed my leadership.

That resonates with my experience of seeing

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your work for the first time, “Visible Undercurrent” in Berlin. I remember on the same weekend, I saw two very different works. The first by Kat Valastur, characterized by a very strict movement score executed in the dancers bodies, and the next day, your piece, which was somehow opposite – built on the basis of horizontal structure. We may call it democratic. JL

I think that Peter’s understanding of collective work is actually providing us an alternative scenario for how we can be together, not just work together, but to simply be together, especially in the harder times of nowadays. For years, due to the infrastructural and financial problems of the Polish scene and beyond, artists were doing solos en masse, very much concerned with their own signature and language. Now, we see a moment in which more and more people tune in to being together – not only working together, but also supporting each other on a personal level and fighting for better conditions for the whole community and the art form. I actually do see an important social responsibility of our art form towards our community and society. It is an especially important issue now in Poland. In the last decade, we were able to develop (at least in Poznan, in the luxury of our studio situation) an amazing laboratory of practices that allowed people to be together, to understand each other better, to share and exchange through somatic approaches and improvisation techniques. We generated knowledge that is not only to help us create art, but one that helps us live. And this is now the moment of call, (knock knock knock-ing, on the table with her fist) for a so-called check up on how much we believe in what we preach. Peter, you have an amazing performance with Eszter Gal called “Practice what you Preach”. I love this title because it represents exactly what I find necessary now. If we really do believe in what we’ve spent the last decade developing; – skills for alternative ways of

working with our bodies and our souls – it is now time, more than ever, to share it with our communities and societies. This is why I find “Moving The Mirror” and in general, your practice and presence in Poland, so important. Apart from the excitement on an aesthetic level and the strength of the artistic proposal, the project also has the importance of providing a meeting and sharing space, and sketching alternative scenarios for how to be together in hard times. I do believe, although artists hate to hear it, that this is a kind of duty of ours now: to give back for the last years we have been so privileged with the chance to develop ourselves and our practices – now we have to spread the virus of these practices in our society. I believe that even if just a slightly larger percentage of us practiced this somatic, improvisational, contemplative approach, our global energy would actually be different and that maybe we would not face such nationalistic forces throughout the world, as we do now. And I know it sounds a bit naïve, when I speak like this, but I strongly believe that now is the time to be naïve, for each other, exactly when hope seems to be fading. PP

Agnieszka, I remember the very first talk we had in the cafe in Berlin after you saw “Visible Undercurrent” in Sophinesaele. I articulated strongly, for the first time, that “Love” was a motor in my work, and I had the same feeling that this was awfully naïve and esoteric.

It was also the first time when I heard someone speak about “love” as a methodology for building choreography. It’s not only about “love” between the performers, but also about what happens to the audience without the border between them and the stage. This is extremely strong for me in your pieces. Love really makes sense, because I have seen it at work. It is not just words; it’s the change that it makes.

Often times when people talk about love and world peace and…

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When they preach it and don’t practice it!

You have the feeling it takes away from the art, that it’s “healy-feely”, “touchy feely” or that its “nice for them but not for the audience”. I hope that this is different in my work, where I ask of myself and of the performers, to not make artistic compromises, to keep an artistic integrity.

Yes, and “love” is not the only component in the work.

No, and for me it doesn’t eliminate artistic integrity. The therapy and spirituality and healing are by-products as well as the foundation. It does not reduce the art for me.

So, love is the answer?

Maybe especially in times like this, it’s true, but it’s still a weak branch…

…delicate, fragile…

On the other hand, some of the right-wing and nationalistic backlash is building against the huge growth of other freedom beliefs; like laughter and love, strongly articulated in the last 30, 40, 50 years, since the feminist movement and the sexual revolution. I do see personal freedom growing and that many more people are speaking out. So, then comes the defence mechanisms in the right-wing to become louder and stronger, almost as a last rear onto their weak hind legs; a cowardly attack by all old white men attempting to contain the critical mass of feminists, queers, people of colour, artists, the poor, everybody who is fighting for more rights and freedom.

Which is another important element in “Moving The Mirror”: pointing out that the recent history of dance and choreography is mainly of work by female and queer artists. This is a topic that has not been openly discussed

here in Poland yet. It is much more present, of course, in international discourses around the development of choreography. Can you reflect a little bit on that, about how you succeeded in communicating this issue through the showings that we had in Warsaw and Wroclaw? PP

For this, I need to go back to my first experience performing “Practice what you Preach” in Russia in 1998, where we state to the audience during the performance: “This is a man and a woman dancing together, and the images you might have could be romantic, but we want to inform you that Eszter is a straight woman and Peter is a gay man”, and to hear the perception of the audience shift, opening possibilities of reading the piece differently, looking away from narrative into space, timing, physics, energy, and other sensations of being moved. Since the start of my artistic life, teaching and performing, it is part of my mission for an audience to know who I am, who we are. The identity of the dancers is a big component of the work, to have that articulated in each process and piece is important for me, so that intimate moments without hiding who one is, can occur. I am often looking through these gender or identity glasses to take a snapshot, to analyse situations. For instance, right here and now: who is invited to this dance-showcase in Warsaw? Women and gay men. And Joanna, who was invited to your last Malta Festival dance program in the summer?

Women and gay men.

So, I think there is still a lot to be articulated about that, as people are reluctant to do so. In “Moving The Mirror”, we play the music of Karol Szymanowski while Paweł speaks about a gay Polish composer who is celebrated for his patriotic music, as a big cultural figure.

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With a shadow over his private life.

In the 1920s, it was not hidden. He was quite open with his life in Zakopane.

Reflecting about the overall project and witnessing the showings in Warsaw and Wroclaw, I imagine “Moving The Mirror” to become a performative series, like a photographic essay in visual arts, where photographers follow a person or group of people over 10, 20, 50 years. This approach would allow us to witness the life and the conditions around us change, and how this influences us as humans and artists. So, how about the “Moving The Mirror” team meets every year from now on? To keep sharing all the personal stories, the little narrations that are part of a larger history; the conditions of the aging body as much as those provided through external situations, arts and politics, other dependencies and relationships. It would be so incredible to see what is happening to us in a longer span of time: how much situations in contemporary dance change, or if they don’t… How these mirrors change, how they deform, get dirty over the years, and how we help each other to clean them,. That would be a dream of mine, to have this project continue that way.

Wow, you are opening up an exciting vision. And as we are sitting here in the atrium office at the Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, with so much space and air around us, I even think that for something grande like this, we could find financial support.

For me, the project has real potential and the value of “not-only-a-one-time-thing”. When you opened the door for audience, it was so clear to me that this is something continuous, with structure, a bond, but that the meat and spirit of it is in constant transition and transformation, according to the energies of

people in the room, including the audience. PP

Imagine how fantastic it would be in ten years, looking back…

…yes, a choreographic essay…

…and see to what will have happened with Ivan or Caroline…

…or Ollie…and our Polish artists…

…everybody.

Where will we be? Still in Berlin and Poland? (AS, JL, PP take a deep breath)

Wow!

Amen

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Peter Pleyer MOVING THE MIRROR

HOW TO DESIST EFFECTIVELY? — CHOREOGRAPHING THE IN-BETWEEN Magdalena Zamorska

The choreographic pieces in which I participated during In Between Festivals in Wrocław induced me to ask question about what takes place in-between: between intention and realisation, framework and action, action and observation, strategies of audience engagements and tactics of individual viewers. It is precisely in these underdetermined liminal junctions that the essence of performance takes place. As we know, performance can only be judged in terms of efficiency: performance does not pretend or imitate anything; it is neither close nor far from the truth. What if a fissure arises, however; what if effectiveness is challenged? Performances developed within the confines of new choreography often deliberately encroach upon the fallow of performers: upon fields of loss, abandonment, failure, refusal, rejection, and desistance. I will refer to this last type of activity (or non-activity) as performances of desistance. One could, perhaps, also dub them performances of resistance… Desistance tends to be treated as a radical political project, whose essence entails slippage from the discipline of success – as has been the case in Judith/Jack Halberstam’s “weak theory”1: failure turns out to be desirable, disrupts the stable course of boundaries, and thus serves as a source of new, atypical tactics. How can one perform desistance in choreographic performance? Desistance can be a part of creative strategies, but it may also occur unexpectedly; it may happen both on the part of performers and their audiences. It may thus be inscribed both in the structure and dramaturgy of stage actions and the process of reception; it may be accidental (potentially leading to unpleasant consequences); it may crop up as creative matter, introduced intentionally or unwittingly. During In Between Festivals, audiences actively performed desistance in Vania Rovisco’s “The archaic, looking out, the night knight”, and had a chance (which they declined) to desist in Paweł Sakowicz’s “TOTAL”. As for the artists, they performed speech desistance in Agata Siniarska and Diego Agullo’s “[...,]”, and agency desistance in Ramona Nagabczyńska’s “Dinge” and Peter Pleyer’s “Moving The Mirror”. Both Rovisco and Sakowicz decided to admit the audience inside their constructs, opening their structures. To this end, at a certain point the narrative – set in various media: language, action, lighting, sound – comes to a halt, engaging the audience in stage activities. “The archaic, looking out, the night knight” is very rich visually and audially, strongly stimulating the viewers’ senses. In the consecutive sequences,

J. Halberstam, Słaba teoria, “Didaskalia” 2013, nr 115/116, p. 50.

Rovisco constructs a character, working with cumulative organic energy and its redistribution between the stage and the audience (this technique had been introduced during the workshops organised on the preceding day), within an audiovisual surroundings constructed using geometrical light forms of many colours and shapes, a live remix of sounds, and a range of abstract, unrecognisable objects that, combined with the performer’s body, form lively, polymorphic, networked entities. In the second part of the piece, Rovisco comes into direct contact with the audience. The performance problematises the notions of observation and perspective: members of the audience are invited to the stage, which enables them to shift their point of view and experience the geometry of space in a new way. To Rovisco’s surprise, the Wrocław audience refused to participate in the piece; they did not take to the stage, remaining in their seats. Viewers took the choreographer aback; the practice of hospitality unexpectedly failed. Why? Perhaps due to the fact that, a moment earlier, Rovisco had encroached upon the audience’s privacy, intercepting and collecting their possessions, and adopting a provocative tone in her monologue. The artist admitted her astonishment and disorientation with the situation during the post-presentation talk (“This has never happened before! In Berlin, the entire audience took to the stage”). Still, as argued by Cormac Power2, failures are potentially positive and creative, allowing one to switch off the autopilot mode, rethink the situation and the emerging options. In this case, the participatory failure may have demonstrated the pleasure derived by the audience from the conventional confinement to a specific perspective, and the comfort derived from refusing to attempt a “more complete worldview.” Could it be said that desistance is a prerequisite for an opening of space for knowledge, and that without desistance one merely dabbles in schemes and assumptions? Much like Rovisco, Paweł Sakowicz decided to embed an “opening” in his piece, inviting the audience to contribute to the script. Sakowicz’s “TOTAL” presents the audience with a performance lecture, an account or report of the artist’s research, assuming a form of experimental philosophy conducted through words and movement3. Embedded in his monologue on the possible ways to define virtuosity is an “aesthetic moment,” in which the choreographer asks the audience if they want to “watch his dance.” This is quite unexpected, since in the course of his speech the artist focus rests with the production of knowledge rather than aesthetics and entertainment. This question is in fact a strong claim: if the performer asks it in the aforementioned way, it means that “dance” is far removed from what we have been watching so far. Through the very act of questioning, Sakowicz defines what dance is, and what it is not. The viewers’ capacity to answer – yes or no – legitimises the narrow understanding of dance. Not only has the dancer refused to dance but he has also unlocked the potential for refusal. The performer’s interpellation (“Do you want to…?”) disambiguates the viewers’ subjectivity as those who are entitled to demand that their desire is satisfied. Thus, the performer engages the audience by problematising their desire. So far, the audience has always responded positively (seven times!)… What if, however, nobody wanted to watch the artist dance? Would Sakowicz be as surprised as Rovisco? Or was his phrase – contrary to her suggestion – affixed with a question mark? The artist admitted he had created “alternative scenarios in case: 1. only one person raised their hand in confirmation (while more expressed desistance), and 2. “if nobody wanted my dance”4. Still, those details will only be revealed If the audience decides to perform desistance.

C. Power, Performing To Fail: Perspectives On Failure In Performance And Philosophy, in: Meyer-Dinkgraffe, Watt (ed.), Ethical Encounters: Boundaries of Theatre, Performance and Philosophy, CSP, Newcastle 2010.

Still, it is difficult to determine whether Sakowicz philisophises using the body or parodies such acts.

P. Sakowicz, private conversation, 6 March 2017.

HOW TO DESIST EFFECTIVELY? | MAGDALENA ZAMORSKA

In their performance, titled “[...,]”, Agata Siniarska and Diego Agullo invite the audience to a “space journey” utilising pop-cultural utilities: science-fiction films and comic books. The audience are guided aboard a ship steered by MODEL 3CI (Siniarska), defined in the programmatic text as a “tangled combination of multiple, complex, and potentially contradictory chains of experience, genetic changes, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence,” acting as witnesses to a series of her/his (?) metamorphoses. Three simultaneous perception channels are activated by the introduction of interface: an analogue “device,” which the viewers can freely manipulate. The “equipment” comes in the form of a booklet with a cut-out shaped as a comic book bubble surrounded with text. The reading is a multi-channel experience. First, the audience are led by the narrative voiceover, informing them when to turn the page and how to use the device when required (e.g. “bring it close to your face,” “rotate 90 degrees”). Second, the viewers read the text posted on the margin of the bubble. Third, they listen to the frenetic monologue delivered by the cyborg. It is precisely within that last channel that a fatal error occurs which constitutes the dramaturgical axis of the performance. The monologue spoken by the android/cyborg (it is difficult to determine how much of a human is contained within MODEL 3CI) is an expression of failure, the result of a systemic malfunction. Error, failure, and loop have all been embedded in the dramaturgical line. The viewer is required to tactically circumvent the system, tear through the glowing wiring, and work out their own significance. The audience is offered two admission paths: one is based on the canonical texts of modern human sciences (critical theory, cyborg theory, discourses of nondance and experience, feminist and gender studies, cybernetics, etc.), while the other utilises the embodied knowledge of media dramaturgy and popcultural texts that have shaped the perceptive and cognitive matrix of contemporary audiences (science-fiction films, interfaces, interactivity, hypermedia, pantechnicisation, overstimulation, excess, simultaneous polysensory stimulation, citations, remixes, borrowings…). Critical error triggers an accelerating machine of disintegration that eviscerates the audience and their minds. The cognitive crisis resulting from the overproduction of images and words activates the sensory impression of cohesion in corporeal experience. An equally intriguing method of using desistance strategy can be found in Ramona Nagabczyńska’s “Dinge” and Peter Pleyer’s “Moving The Mirror”. Both projects involve improvisations by choreographers and performers, who delegate agency to macro- and micro-objects. Improvisation naturally entails the renunciation of the choreographic score in favour of real-time composition, while choreographic improvisation boils down to determining the frame and context of movement. Particularly interesting in both these project is the way in which the performers relinquish their responsibility for the final shape of their pieces5. When it comes to agency and intentionality, the two pieces are mutually symmetrical. Nagabczyńska pre-frames a stage situation by approaching the piece, performed by herself, Magda Jędrej, Paweł Sakowowicz and Anita Wach, as a corporeal rematerialisation of inter-objective relations in Fischli&Weiss’s 1987 “The Way Things Go”. On the other hand, Peter Pleyer and the accompanying group of visual artists and performers (Michiel Keuper, Caroline Alexander, Aleksandra Borys, Oliver Connew, Ivan Ekemark, Anna Nowicka, Paweł Sakowicz, Marysia Stokłosa) post-frame the situation, determining the final stabilisation of “transitional sculptures” (i.e. improvised sets of bodies and objects in space) within the frame.

Owing to the complexity and multiplicity of individual episodes in “Moving The Mirror”, my ruminations are restricted to a selected score, which the artists define as “transitional sculptures.”

HOW TO DESIST EFFECTIVELY? | MAGDALENA ZAMORSKA

Nagabczyńska introduces the audience to a study in the dynamic interdependencies between objects (including bodies) in space, which she defines as the “dramaturgy of physical laws.” Dancers-choreographers move, reacting to the impulses and stimuli received by their senses (hearing, sight, touch). Thus, the act of choreography is founded on subjection to a principle (action is a physical reaction of the object to the principles and dynamic of another object) and refusal to do anything “excessive.” Intentional design of stage movement is thus out of the question. The discussed presentation of “Dinge” also involves a striking spatial setting. The performance was intended for three different audience groups: the Wrocław viewers gathered in the temporary audience space, random passers-by glancing from behind the gallery windows, and the virtual audience gathered at the Living Room gallery in Warsaw. Interestingly, each “channel” simultaneously added and subtracted value. The audience in the house sat sideways to the “stage,” often struggling to see anything, but the artists’ presence was unmediated; the audience outside the gallery saw the performers from up close and frontally, but the thick window pane prevented them from partaking in the audial aspects of the piece; the Warsaw audience watched the performance from a great angle (the camera was set in the close proximity of the performers), but was limited to following the visual layer of the piece. Thus, the choreographer’s desistance featured a refusal to determine the proper (privileged?) audience group. Similarly, Peter Player and the accompanying artists in the score of “transitional sculptures” conducted an experiment involving real-time composition. In Nagabczyńska’s piece, it was the impulses received and processed by the performers that served as the source of movement. Hers was a dynamic composition, devoid of culmination and suspense, which would reveal finite, ready-made configurations of matter and space. On the contrary, “Moving The Mirror” features collective compositions of bodies, objects, shadows and lighting, constructed “piece by piece” and culminating in a selected chunk of space, arriving at a moment of fullness, “finiteness,” asserted by each composer. Spontaneous actions that essentially involved gestures which transformed the set of objects in space required a temporary suspension of individual examination and controlling tendencies in favour of a collective and consistently negotiated vision. The choreographers and performers co-creating stage actions in each of the five performances problematise the relations between bodies and objects in space and, above all, complicate the position and perspective of the audience. Traditional theatre space, constructed in accordance with the so-called fourth wall paradigm, the audience fronts the stage. The power of convention renders this unique and particular locus of perception translucent to the viewer. What ensues is complete absorption, undivided imbibition. On the contrary, the performances presented during In Between Festivals, the artists intentionally focalise the audience (disambiguating their point of view) in a non-classical way, or at least attempt to do so. Their strategies are highly divers. First, they physically displace the audience’s point of view: Rovisco summons her audience onto the stage, Player utilises a spatial structure conducive to translocation, Nagabczyńska employs a sideways perspective for her physical audience, while offering frontal perspective for the tele-audience. Second, the changes in perspective do not entail corporeal displacement: see the invitation to contribute to the script of the piece, embedded in Sakowicz’s question; or the activation of three simultaneous communications channels requiring continuous refocus of attention in Siniarska’s piece. This is precisely where desistance takes place: between intention, assumption, plan and its (non)realisation, (non)fulfilment. Performances of desistance do not strive to avoid errors, do not fear failure, and simply do not struggle to attain goals; they just come up short in performing according to preconceived patterns; they have assumed physical engagement on the part of the audience, but something has gone wrong; others refuse to offer sense to the viewers, or anticipate audience desistance in their dramaturgy. Such performances, created as if in congruence with the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi, achieve fullness solely through their own imperfection.

HOW TO DESIST EFFECTIVELY? | MAGDALENA ZAMORSKA

Paweł Sakowicz Paweł Sakowicz HOW TO DESIST EFFECTIVELY? | MAGDALENA ZAMORSKA

ON IMPROVISATION Tom Arthurs

While researching Berlin’s scene for my PhD in 2012–13, a study that included many of the musicians performing in Wroclaw during 2016, one of the questions that interested me most was that of the meaning of the word “improvisation” – to these musicians and in the context of contemporary Improvised Music and Jazz beyond. Popular and historical references to the art of improvisation often refer to such notions as “sine arte”, “sine meditatione”, “aus dem Kopfe”, “di fantasia” or “by chance”, however, in academic musicology (and the ever-growing field of improvisation and creativity studies) much progress has already been made to quantify and dispel such myths.1 Already in these fields, excellent accounts exist of the improvisational “models” used by Indian classical sitarists, baroque continuo players, Indonesian reciters of the Qu’ran and rappers alike, but what links these seemingly disparate fields and what separates these musics from others? The fact that, like all performances, certain aspects are decided in advance (“composed”) whereas others are decided in the moment (“improvised”) – a discovery that leads us to reconsider music as simultaneously “more” or “less” improvised, or “more” or “less” composed. From this perspective, even the most “composed” of written works contains improvised elements (differences in timing between performances, the way a string quartet reacts to the differing acoustics of each concert hall), just as the most “freely” improvised performances inevitably draw on a repertoire of previous musical, personal and collective experiences (previous performances, musicians individual tastes and practice habits). In other musics, underlying structures often provide the foundation or inspiration for improvisation (Tin Pan Alley songs in traditional/modern jazz, folk melodies, or pre-composed harmonic structures) and these are then embellished with “licks”, substitutions or ornaments (embodying the personalities and tastes of each individual performer and responding to each performance situation). However, in the case of much contemporary jazz or so-called “freely” or “open” Improvised Music, often no such structures appear to be present. How does it work? Is it simply divine inspiration or from what source does it spring? In many senses, I continue to argue that the process is far less mystical than many might immediately assume,

Nettl and Russell’s In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation is an excellent primer on the subject.

and, as one Berlin-based musician I interviewed described, in the case of much contemporary jazz and Improvised Music (especially where there is no obvious underlying musical structure), in fact: [The word] improvisation means something very different. [The way] people usually use it is to do something “out of the blue” and reacting to some very new situation and then hav[ing] to deal with it somehow and improvise what you do. But I think what [improvising] musicians do is the opposite – they have their material prepared, and they use it maybe in a spontaneous way. It’s not pre-decided – they take the decision in the moment, but it’s very much a process that has a lot of work already done before the concert, [just] as a composer does. Also speaking quite pragmatically, another concurred adding: Every one of the musicians has their developed sound vocabulary... they have their instrument, and on that instrument, they discovered a lot of vocabulary, like a language. And then, on the other hand, they also developed a way of working with those elements... the sounds [themselves], which are also a sort of compositional element, and the way how to work with that. Musicians’ responses to this question were often surprising – many who were to be seen playing the most abstract of sound-based improvised music in public told me how in private they liked to practice jazz standards or Bach études, and many developed their own unique practice-schedules, tailored to their own artistic aims. These rituals were mainly, and quite simply, constructed relative to what each musician wanted to hear or how they wanted to sound, and these decisions originated in their own listening history as well as in response to playing in unfamiliar situations, or situations where they didn’t have an existing solution. Rudi Mahall, who performed in Wroclaw with Aki Takase, told me that: Everybody just brings the things that he likes the most. [Frank] Gratkowski maybe likes [American saxophonist and composer Anthony] Braxton a lot, whereas I also like Braxton, but maybe I prefer Paul Desmond. But I can’t say I prefer it, but more that, in a certain way, it touches me more. And that in me, Paul Desmond just strikes a chord with something different. [...] Everybody understands it differently. For many, the development of these materials was in response to musical and social situations where they didn’t have existing solutions, one musician telling me how, in 1990s Berlin: When the first laptop player came into the scene... they had this [sings something like a high sine wave] and then there were instrumentalists who wanted to sound like this too. [...] Then you think, “Wow this sounds really cool, and I wanna sound like this”. And then you find out sounds which work well with that. For most musicians, although they occasionally played “out of control” (and when they did this, this was

ON IMPROVISATION | TOM ARTHURS

a conscious decision in itself, or a conscious decision to capitalise on a “mistake”), practice was about developing their own recognisable “voice” or “sound” (their own personal expression), as well as having the flexibility that this could integrate meaningfully with others. Coming together, a set of unspoken assumptions of trust, deep listening, awareness and an aspiration to musical honesty guided musicians’ choice of materials (choosing whether to play or not, or to play with, against, or to counterpoint the others), and from this point of view, many described the truly novel and surprising qualities of improvisation as happening on the collective level, during performance and in the moment. * Thinking of “more” or “less” improvised musics, there are many different ways to improvise within the microcosm of today’s Jazz and Improvised Music, and, during 2016, the programmers of In Between Festivals (intentionally or otherwise) provided a staggeringly well-balanced view of contemporary possibility – ranging from the entirely improvised duos of Andrea Parkins/Frank Gratkowski and Mateusz Ribicki/Zbigniew Kozera2 to the big band swing of the Przemek Michalak Swing Band or the Klezmer group Jascha Lieberman trio. In the case of many playing in Wroclaw, in addition to playing “freely” (meeting and playing without any prior discussion, composition, plan or concept) this also meant the flexibility to integrate with compositional (pre-planned) structures, although the means by which individual improvisational skills and materials were combined was quite different in each case. Even at the most “improvised” end of the spectrum (the solo performance of Olaf Rupp, or the duo of Andrea Parkins and Frank Gratkowski) composed or pre-meditated elements were present, and these were manifested in musicians’ initial choice to play together (group constellation as a compositional choice) as well as the decision to choose certain instruments and the performance’s location. The incredible range of venues used in Wroclaw, which were chosen with great care to reflect the groups performing there, was absolute testament to the range of physical and social locations where modern Jazz and Improvised Music can feel at home.3 And, in my opinion, there are two kinds of musicians in this sense – those who play “their thing” or “their music” regardless of the surroundings (transmitting a specific and unchanging message), and those who work intimately with each acoustic and energetic situation (tuning-in and responding to each environment in turn). Among those not working with written material at all, subtle but important differences in approach were interesting to note. Guitarist Olaf Rupp begins his solo performances with a blank canvas, however, rather than simply letting the music flow unconsciously or out of control: When I play... it’s like making a camp fire. [...] [It’s] a thermic process that creates its own energy by burning itself... [but] sometimes, like on the fire, you have to arrange it... you put some wood, you put it in. [...] I influence it. [...] I enjoy this game between the freedom and my influence on it.

Perhaps it is more correct to say “the most freely improvised”.

As a contrast to the architectural formal beauty of the recently built NFM concert hall, programmer and saxophonist Uli Kempendorff described the venue Miserart as “very Prenzlauer Berg early 90s” – a self-organised and self-built space maintained by homeless people, where musicians performed surrounded by “tomato plants, reused stuff, recycled madness and a creative and loose ugly beauty.”

ON IMPROVISATION | TOM ARTHURS

As opposed to just being lost “in the moment”, as perhaps many new listeners might assume, many so-called “free” improvisers consciously think about musical form and architecture whilst performing, and, extending this idea even further, while not using written scores, the contrabass quartet Sequoia uses pre-defined concepts to improvise with. The concepts are taught and transmitted only orally, and each piece has a concept, “strategy” or pre-defined aesthetic/rule for interaction. One such piece is entitled “Birdcages: Twelve Tone Row with four open strings”, and the instructions for performance are as follows: Imagine: Four Birdcages, each with three perches and one bird. Each bird relates to one player, each cage to a double bass, each perch to one of the twelve [chromatic] tones of the octave. Each player uses only three pitches, which can be used in any octave. In each of these four sets, one of the three pitches is an open string (E–A–D–G).4 Each set contains three intervals (major third, minor third, diminished fifth). When all these sets are combined, a Twelve Tone Row emerges: Set 1: C – E – Gb Set 2: Eb – F – A Set 3: Ab – Bb – D Set 4: G – B – Db The piece takes place in 4 phases: ( 1 ) Pizzicato [plucked]. The order of the four players is agreed. Each player takes it in turns to play his or her three pitches. Each player decides the order, octave placement and duration of the three tones, which nonetheless should all be played consecutively. After several repetitions, on cue, the end of this phase is marked by a chord of four tritones, played simultaneously. (C–Gb–C / F–B–F / Ab–D–Ab / Db–G–Db) ( 2 ) Arco [bowed]. Long notes using the material of the three pitches. Simultaneously to begin with, then increasingly superimposed. ( 3 ) Pizzicato/Arco, increasingly free use of the 3-Pitch-Material. ( 4 ) The four “open” strings: exploration of the harmonic series (natural overtones). On cue, to end, simultaneous overtones with long pauses in between. Already, without scores, many “composed” or pre-determined elements are added to what we might otherwise call “free”, “pure” or “real” improvisation, and these elements are added with the intention of providing focus, and leading the performers to sonic outcomes that are predicable in some senses whilst remaining surprising in others. From the side of those using original written compositions as well as improvisation, the trio of Ticho, in which I played with pianist Marc Schmolling and singer Almut Kühne interspersed “free” improvisations

An “open” string is one that is not blocked by the fingers of the left hand – so if one would simply pluck the strings of the bass with one hand.

ON IMPROVISATION | TOM ARTHURS

(which took place without any prior agreement or concept) with filigraine almost-classical miniature compositions by Marc (somehow the lovechild of Thelonius Monk and Morton Feldman). And whilst our improvisations occasionally referred to the compositional materials, this was not necessarily obvious, and we only very rarely discussed what we did (or would do) while improvising. In the case of Ticho, the energetic shifts in concentration between improvised and composed sections (arguably) made it immediately clear to the knowing listener which is which, but the same could be said so easily of groups who merged approaches even more seamlessly – like the trio Gropper / Graupe / Lillinger (formerly known as Hyperactive Kid), saxophonist Philip Gropper’s Philm, or Lillinger’s Grund. Such groups drew on the singular musical vision of their leaders as well as their long history together to create a music where it wasn’t clear from the outside which elements were composed or improvised. And in these cases, while some sections were clearly entirely composed and written down, others were based on concepts or combined approaches. In the same moment it was possible that some musicians were improvising without concept (“freely”), while others played pre-planned strategies or written lines. The connections were seamless, and it was common for all such musicians to be equally proficient as interpreters and improvisers, also bringing their personalities and personal timbres and articulations to the compositions. The role of composition in bands such as Grund is quite different to that of classical music, popular music, Klezmer or even jazz, and, instead of being the centre of attention or providing underlying structures for improvisation, Lillinger told me: What we’re doing is just not to totally notate a complete work. [Instead we are] looking for atmospheres and moods that make good starting points for improvisation. [...] There are songs and clearer things, but these are only helpful in terms of arriving somewhere, or finding a quick consensus in the band. [...] We improvise pretty manically, so... it’s good to have both. For others, the aim was to use composition as a basis for improvisation, but only in the loosest sense, and, as saxophonist and composer Uli Kempendorff said, of his group Field, far from the compositional structure remaining sacrosact: In my group, the material is much more songs... but I choose players who will destroy and “slash-and-burn” everything. [...] I still want to expose it to that. Aside from those using original material, Aki Takase and Rudi Mahall delved in and out of compositions by jazz greats including Eric Dolphy and Fats Waller, and, like the Przemek Michalak Swing Band, they improvised “on” or “in” pre-composed chord sequences which defined or suggested melodic and harmonic colours and materials (and their durations). The basic underlying “swinging” rhythmic feel of jazz often underlay these possibilities for improvisiation, these factors or restrictions creating a framework for the musicians to improvise freely within, deciding the rest in the moment of performance. Just as Takase and Mahall used the structures of jazz classics much more loosely and abstractly than the swing band, Golden Escort addressed the traditions of Klezmer and Balkan music with a looseness a long way from the Klezmer trio of Jascha Lieberman (who stayed closer to the original songs and improvised within the culturally and historically defined framework of Klezmer). Of course the social function is also different – arguably for Golden Escort, Mahall and Takase the outcome is an abstract modern Art Music, whereas for the swing band and Lieberman the functions of dance music, storytelling and entertainment remain.

ON IMPROVISATION | TOM ARTHURS

* Finally, in this short essay, I devote a brief moment to consider the meaning of improvisation and spontaneous collective creativity in today’s world. Certainly from the outside, if not occasionally from the inside, for music with such a small audience it might be questionable what purpose these musics and this festival serve, especially when we consider the current greater global picture. Is this simply an isolated pursuit of the disaffected middle classes? Is it just noise? Does it make any kind of difference? Should it? I type these words on the day of President Trump’s inauguration, following a spontaneous and heated discussion in a London café with an intelligent young waitress, discussing the seeming futility of ever right-turning global politics and a seemingly ever-growing triumph of capitalism and individualism over collectivism and community. The fact that going out to march isn’t enough to affect change. Questioning what might. Considering other revolutions and how bad things have to get in order to be heard. Considering the disaffectedness of those who decided not to vote. The shame of those reluctant to admit who they did vote for. The need to view Trump, Brexit, AfD, Le Pen, and the close call of the recent Austrian election as symptoms not causes. Questioning the balancing of heroicism and self-sacrifice over self-care and looking after those closest to us. The importance of grass roots actions. Taking care of things on the level of small, positive and principled acts. It’s hard to write about this without the romanticism of an old Marxist, even if, based on historical precedent few could still pretend this to be a functioning alternative. But nonetheless, now, perhaps more than ever, with so much global conflict and rise of the international popular right, we need deep listening on all levels. The acceptance, appreciation and understanding of difference. Positivity. Equality. Good energy. Aspirational role models. To re-establish community, love, togetherness and the invisible as assets more valuable than money, status, power and ownership. To become more yielding and flexible to break from pre-defined trajectories, norms and what is automatically handed to us. To admit our faults and to know our own inner sound and being – living and manifesting that, freely. With such aspirations and qualities in place, many problems disappear. And this music, I still believe, is a small step in promoting such aims. Whilst many musicians do not claim their music is “politcal” per se,5 and I’m sure many would also disagree with me, I still believe that deep within the structures we present, these qualities are present – embodying not just shocking reflections of the turmoil that we currently live in, but realistic (if, for the time being, utopian) models for other realities, on local and global scales. Even in this seemingly dark hour our music continues to gather strength, relevance and audience (also helped in a small way by this Festival), and, true to the ideals of many of our heroes and elders (Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Coltrane, Globe Unity Orchestra), it is imperative that we keep us this work as musicians, promoters, academics, journalists and last, but not at all least, audience members. Let us work together to do what we can. And let us go deeper into the good stuff.

During my interviews, around one third of musicians described their music as directly representing their politics, one third described their decision to live a life as a jazz/improvising musician as a political statement in itself, and the last third described their activities as apolitical.

ON IMPROVISATION | TOM ARTHURS

Mateusz Rybicki

Graupe / Gropper / Lillinger

WASTE MATTERS Agata Siniarska

When I was invited to contribute to this publication, I thought about the many topics I could write about, yet felt overwhelmed by the myriad of incredible texts that are already written, discussing dance, choreography and performance. I then remembered a situation I encountered after the performance “Death is Certain” by Eva Meyer-Keller, a work which involves a multitude of cherries, and their eventual deaths. Just before the end of night, somebody held one cherry in his or her hands and said “what a waste”. Waste. What happens to all the cherries after the performances? Are they disposed of? How are they dealt with? Are they really dead? How do they carry their deaths? The answers to these questions probably lie in the trash bin but still calls for attention. How much waste does every performance produce, and what kind of waste: symbolic, material, or physical? What is waste and what does it mean, “to waste”? So as not to waste more time, I started to write this text with the aim to provide an adequate vocabulary for describing ways in which waste in performance can be experienced, through its political nature, and through experiences of time, agency and matter that waste can produce. This task demands pragmatism. I acknowledge that I am unable to elaborate on all the possible questions and issues around waste in such a short text. Hence, this is only a stimulus, a starting point for engaging in this topic, and the immense conversation it invokes.

WASTE-RUBBISH-TRASH-GARBAGE Let’s think about the creation of waste, rubbish, trash, garbage, or whichever word we like to employ to denote things of no use. Waste is the opposite of use, or represents a category of the “useless”, meaning that something has “been a waste” or has “been wasted” – a waste of resources, inappropriate, or misused time. The ontological status of waste is not that easy to define. Waste is often found between something and nothing, presence and disappearance: events that mark transformation, spatially and temporally. Waste is also (and in both senses of the phrase) matter out of time or matter within the time-block, in time that functions differently. Another notion of the verb “to waste” means to misuse, squander, and neglect or destroy. Waste is useless. Waste is like art.

A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one. Truly yours, Oscar Wilde1

WASTE-MATTER. DEATH IS CERTAIN by EVA MEYER-KELLER Cherries are killed, one by one – some of these deaths are trivial, some extremely sophisticated: burning, crushing, drowning, electrocuting, hanging, kidnapping, poisoning, quartering, shooting, voodoo cursing, suffocating. When the last cherry is killed the performance is over. One might ask if certain objects are “finished” or “dead”, disclaiming their disposal. Waste frequently requires a sense of how time has somehow passed, is paused or is no longer available to us through the things that surround us. While wasted things might often be associated with the inoperative, the unused or misused, this always makes this inaction distinct in time. Discarded objects are sometimes said to have “had their time” or might be disposed of because they have “seen better days”. Now their time is over. They become matter out of time. They carry death. Inanimate objects attain “life” only as they serve human purposes or coincide with the useful time of the living. To eat cherries (although no longer growing on trees), they remain “alive”, also symbolically. Meyer-Keller executes them, one after the other. This symbolic death is also the one that changes the ontological status of cherries. Waste becomes “dead matter”. Cherries are dying, not only through the actions applied to their bodies by Meyer-Keller, but with the change of situation. They become disused, devalued, unused, unemployed. Waste objects are felt to have a multiple, mixed, polyvalent and dispersed sense of time, without a familiar trajectory. They stay untouched, in the timelessness. Death is this timelessness. At the same time, looking at all the dead, strewn cherries after the performance, ready to be thrown to the trash bin, their status brings an acknowledgement of time’s passing, its power to organize notions of wearing, decay, transience and dissolution, and its power to expose that organizing function, to disclose how things are imbued with a sense of duration, punctuation and intermission that makes time an explicit, tangible thing of thought. Waste, both spatially and temporally, is a concept with uncertain limits. Waste results from imperceptible contests between life and death. Death constitutes the human return to matter. Dead, human bodies is the garbage.

WASTE-LOSS. DINGE by RAMONA NAGABCZYŃSKA Time is not an object in the same way as a chair, or rather, that it is an object, but it is also a condition from within which we understand objects. A performance “Dinge” by Nagabczyńska lasts 5 hours, starting from 20:55 in the evening and finishing at 5:01 in the morning. The actions the performers make are simple but executed rigorously. The performers negotiate imagined physical laws in

http://www.themorgan.org/collection/oscar-wilde/manuscripts-letters/38

WASTE MATTERS | AGATA SINIARSKA

a constant mode of creation. This ongoing action within this timeframe makes the performers and their dance almost a museum object, or at least it puts into question the borders between subject and object. The more we watch, the more the ontological status of the bodies becomes useless. It ceases to function as it’s “supposed” to. The matter of exposition is also one that calls my attention. If the bodies and their movement function here as museum objects, then they will not receive the full and constant attention from the audience side. As an audience member I am taught to experience the performance from its beginning to its end. In “Dinge” I am not obliged to do it. I can allow dance to exist on its own, I do not need to participate in the process of constituting the performance. Still, being in the struggle of how to position myself in relation to “Dinge” as a viewer (am I looking at the sculpture or at the performance?) and concentrating only on its actual performance, I cannot forget about Peggy Phelan’s words: Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology. Performance’s being, like the ontology of subjectivity proposed here, becomes itself through disappearance. [...] Performance occurs over a time, which will not be repeated. It can be performed again, but this repetition itself marks it as “different.” The document of a performance then is only a spur to memory, an encouragement of memory to become present […] there are no left-overs, the gazing spectator must try to take everything in. Without a copy, live performance plunges into visibility – in a maniacally charged present – and disappears into memory, into the realm of invisibility and the unconscious where it eludes regulation and control2. In “Dinge” there are no leftovers but there is a feeling of loss: these moments, situations that escaped from my gaze, these moments when I decided not to be attentive, when I decided to leave the space for a while, these parts are lost for me irrevocably. These moments are waste, between something and nothing, presence and disappearance. The feeling of loss belongs only to me; no part of the performance is lacking anything. It is me who produces it. I need to ask, does this performance really need me? Or perhaps as: Things-in-themselves? But they are fine, thank you very much. And how are you? You complain about things that have not been honoured by your vision? You feel that these things are lacking the illumination of your consciousness? But if you missed the galloping freedom of the zebras in the savannah this morning, then so much the worse of you; the zebras will not be sorry that you were not there, and in any case you would have tamed them, killed, photographed, or studied them. Things

Phelan, Peggy (1993) — Unmarked. The Politics of the Performance, Routledge.

WASTE MATTERS | AGATA SINIARSKA

in themselves lack nothing, just as Africa did not lack whites before their arrival3.

WASTE-TIME. MOVING THE MIRROR by PETER PLEYER For four days, every evening Peter Pleyer, Caroline Alexander, Aleksandra Borys, Marysia Stokłosa, Oliver Connew, Ivan Ekemark, Anna Nowicka, Paweł Sakowicz, Michiel Keuper were opening their studio in order to share their time with us, the audience. In these events, they improvised their performance. Improvisation subverts the idea of what is used, what is wasted. Of course, it demands a huge responsibility to “use the opportunity”, that spontaneous, uncertain situations create. Time use is explicitly future-orientated, and in this case, in this work, it is here and now that constitutes the situation. All the dancers are trying to honour every moment. Here and now. Waste-time is a time without a functional, and therefore a temporal, end. Improvisation is a practice of waste. How much of the performance needs to happen in order for the performance to appear? What is the work here? Do they work just to spend time together? What if this is about joy? A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. “Moving The mirror” is like a flower that blossoms, the work for its joy. It does not need to prove anything and to anybody. Waste here is a medial condition, not just a thing of consequence but also an original thing, a thing to end, and to begin with. Again, Peggy Phelan: Performance in a strict ontological sense is non-reproductive. It is this quality which makes performance the runt of the litter of contemporary art4. “Moving The Mirror” is non-reproductive in its status. It proposes different logic where categories like success and failure are not anymore at stake.

WASTE-ART The best art is totally useless. What more than being pretty does it do? However that is the main advantage of art; it doesn’t actually do anything, the onlooker does, and that’s when you gain insight into life itself 5. Perhaps art does not do anything, but on the contrary, the art market does a lot. For the art market, waste is always a waste of something. In Diego Agulló’s book “Betraying Ambition”, he claims that:

Latour, Bruno (1999) — Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the reality of Science Studies Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Phelan, Peggy (1993) — Unmarked. The Politics of the Performance, Routledge.

http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-art-useless?nsort=2&ysort=5

WASTE MATTERS | AGATA SINIARSKA

There is no one more ambitious than a politician or an artist: in both cases you need to go around soliciting your votes. A vote means preference. You go around asking for preferences. You have a strong desire to be the preferred one. This is the intimate affinity between artists and politicians: they both need to be selected, chosen, to be somebody’s favourite in order to be successful6. As an artist, I am also taught by the system what is a wasted opportunity, what it means to waste time by not doing something that can lift me up the ladder of success, or to not do that thing correctly. But what if “wasting time” is simply one of the more linguistically repeated conjugations of waste and time. One of the etymological meaning of waste is desert – a space that overwhelms with its marvel but that excludes any practical advantages. I cannot start a plantation of cherries in the desert, I cannot capitalize it. Waste cannot be capitalized. Art ( not artists ) cannot be capitalized either. What if waste is a notion that perturbs a cruel binary, which stays between something and nothing, presence and disappearance, putting attention to modulation, as a practice of correspondence, not exclusion. There is a habit in Western tradition of separating the valuable from the worthless, a habit of thinking and existing in the world. Maybe it is time to change it.

FURTHER READING Agulló, Diego Betraying Ambition, Circadian (2017) Latour, Bruno Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the reality of Science Studies, Harvard University Press (1999) Phelan, Peggy Unmarked. The Politics of the Performance, Routledge (1993) Scanlan, John On Garbage, Reaktion Books Ltd. (2005) Viney, William Waste. The philosophy of Things, Bloomsbury Academic (2014)

Agulló, Diego (2017) — Betraying Ambition, CIRCADIAN

WASTE MATTERS | AGATA SINIARSKA

Ramona NagabczyÅ&#x201E;ska

Photo descroption

TO ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF NOT KNOWING. HOW IMPROVISATION INFLUENCES MY WAY OF MAKING PERFORMANCE Hermann Heisig

Writing about the relationship between improvisation and composition within my work as a performer and choreographer, I realize that for me it is difficult to define the borders of improvisation. Where does it begin or end? Within live arts, each performance happens only once, it is never really the same, and for me it is this aliveness that is one of the strongest reasons to make work within this field. Even the most written score might have differences in performing, and already within that difference there could be something called improvisation. And, on the famous other side, even within wildest improvisation there is a constant real-time composing going on, patterns that re-appear, because working with intuition doesn’t necessarily mean always doing completely new things. Nevertheless in talking about making choreography I often experience a shyness to talk about improvisation as a tool in composing. There is a widespread suspicion about improvisation of being less serious, less conscious, something “not really worked”. I guess that is why the term “instantaneous composition” gets frequently used when people actually mean “improvisation”, probably in order to let this practice appear a bit more as a conscious artistic choice. During talks after performances sometimes there is this strange question appearing: “how much of it was improvised?” Which is of course a legitimate question, but for me it leads a bit into the nowhere, or at least it confirms a border between “composing” and “improvising”, which needs to be challenged. That is why I am very much into exploring a connection between composing and improvising that goes beyond the cliché of composition as “knowing” and improvisation as “not knowing”, working towards an intuitive way of understanding composition. Within my work improvisation and composition are intertwined, one cannot really exist without the other. Since I began being busy with dance, improvisation played a big role in understanding my body as an artistic tool, it is a practice that is with me all the time but I feel its position changed shape several times up to now. There is something about throwing oneself into the unplanned that fascinates me very much since being 15 years old in 97 and taking part in a competition called “the best dance solo”, which happened during Euro-scene Festival in my hometown Leipzig. The idea of this competition invented by Alain Platel was quite simple: the only rules were one large table, on which a number of solo dances were presented, that could have a maximum length of 5 minutes. There was no restriction what age, style or education the soloists should have, which made me try out a dance solo without ever having visited a dance class.

Having seen occasionally performances before, this instinctive decision was based on a mix of inspirations coming from club culture, alternative culture and as well the physicality of certain comedians. Having no clue about warming up or how to structure and remember a choreography, I performed a dance in which I chose the music first and then would fix several “cues” within it, on which I remembered certain gestures or positions. The rest stayed open for improvising. This proved to be a good “recipe” for my first performances, in the following years I performed many, mostly improvised solo dances in galleries, clubs, the art school and other underground venues of Leipzig. Being a foreigner to dance, this frequent practice of performing was allowing me to develop an approach to dance based on learning by doing. While slowly beginning to watch more shows and take dance classes, Improvisation in that context was a tool for me to deal with the public, to explore what dance could do to me, and what I could do with dance. In 2002, I started a dance education in Berlin, wanting to confront myself with the question of training and forming the body. One of the basic questions for me was how to integrate my practice based on improvisation into building a structure that is able to be repeated. In this context improvisation became more a tool for generating material, I remember filming long improvisations with a small camera, watching it and trying to select certain moments, trying to re-do them. A further turn in my perception of improvisation happened in 2007, when taking part in ex.e.rc.e 07, a seven month long series of choreographic workshops at CCN de Montpellier under the direction of Mathilde Monnier and Xavier Le Roy. In our discussions there was a very present doubt on improvisation, or at least in the idea of improvisation being more “free” than other ways of composing. Because improvisation is linked so much to intuition and being spontaneous, often this misunderstanding comes up: we think that we improvise “freely”, but in fact we reproduce the same patterns. Not being conscious about that can lead into a way of improvising, where the discourse in the end is only about what was the “good moment” within improvising, so things end up in a big harmless jam session. Those questions stayed in my head, but nevertheless I became interested in patterns. It is true that while improvising we often come back to similar habits. But through the years I also felt that these habits are in a constant flow, depending on the artistic influences one goes through. So why not try to be conscious about them and use them in order to compose? Still there is a clear difference between written, composed work and improvisation. Also as a spectator it is a very different way of watching and thinking and exchanging about what you see. There is a completely different timing: both practicing and watching improvisation is like riding waves, passing high points and going through moments where things fall apart, until again something unexpected happens. There is a close connection between endurance and improvisation, getting over the point of tiredness, after one has shot out all the “ideas”, and then suddenly in the moment of giving up there is a possibility to enter a deeper level. Using improvisation within the creation process, there are similar experiences: how to go through this process of frustration, when once there was the “perfect” improvised scene which is impossible to reconstruct. Trying to repeat it gets worse and worse…but this is a process that seems to be necessary as a way for rooting and shaping the material, to set the degree of improvisation but nevertheless crafting it, without killing the energy of the material. SLAP/ STICK, the solo work I presented in the frame of In Between Festivals in Wroclaw, was a piece where for me a new connection of composing and improvising emerged. In the piece I started to re-examine elements of the comical that have always been there in my work. One part of the work was to deal with involuntary action, using the loss of control not as something to avoid, but in fact as a motor for creation. The involuntary is an element that is closely connected both to the comical and improvising: for example we laugh if someone looses control and stumbles.

TO ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF NOT KNOWING | HERMANN HEISIG

I was getting fascinated with the idea to find a way of composing that can integrate the tension between loosing and regaining control. How to make a frame in order to let things go out of hand? How to give involuntary action a place within the process in order to produce an opening, where the spectators can witness the becoming of something rather than the finished product? Lately, within my group work STRTCH, I have become more and more busy with resonance, feedback and echoing each other, both as a topic but as well a way of composing. Like in the famous saying “as one calls in the forest, it echoes back” there is a relationship between what is initiated, and what gets thrown back and influences what is getting initiated next. This balance between knowing and not-knowing led to a way of composing that uses the ability of improvisation to address aspects of failure and misunderstanding, incorporating them within a set, but yet not fully predictable chain of social interaction. In that sense improvisation has several functions within my work: it is a tool to generate, condense and reshape materials, and through that its a way of developing an artistic language from the specificity of my body as a tall, skinny dancer that is not very stretchable. Within the composition I try to find different degrees of balancing the relation between what is set and what is not set. Like calling into the forest, I would enter the work by preparing several “objects”, which can be a thought, an object, a state… then, as a resonance, “materials” emerge, that could be structured ways of improvising, movement patterns or qualities. By repeating them over and over they get a specific shape. And even later they eventually develop into one of the darlings that need to be killed. And their loss would for example create a gap that enables a new material to emerge. So during the process there are several intermediate steps of improvising and composing. In that sense one tool of composing is to narrow down and expand the areas where improvisation takes place, building a structure that can function like a container that can be filled again and again, each time a little different. So improvising is not only a way to generate material at the beginning of a process, it is also a way to perform a specifically composed work.

TO ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF NOT KNOWING | HERMANN HEISIG

Hermann Heisig TO ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF NOT KNOWING | HERMANN HEISIG

LIST OF VENUES

FEBRUARY 17th 17th 18th

Hermann Heisig PHILM & Kuba Suchar Rafał Dziemidok & Ewa Garniec

TOTU Firlej TOTU

Kathrin Pechlof Trio Piotr Łyszkiewicz Trio Maria F. Scaroni Karol Tymiński Gulf Of Berlin Olaf Rupp

Infopunkt

Killing Popes LXMP Vania Rovisco

CRK

Jule Flierl Paweł Sakowicz Sequoia & Yuko Kaseki

Miser Art

Andrea Parkins & Gratkowski Mateusz Rybicki & Zbigniew Kozera SHIFTS

Miser Art

MARCH 15th 16 th 17th

CIA OPT

APRIL 27th 28th

Barbara

MAY 18th 19 th

Miser Art

JUNE 22nd 23rd

Barbara

JULY 20 th 20 th 21st

Ramona Nagabczyńska FIELD Eva Meyer-Keller

Barbara Hart Infopunkt

Aki Takase & Yui Kawaguchi Aki Takase & Rudi Mahall Magdalena Jędra

NFM Vertigo Barbara

Rafał Dziemidok Bücking & Kröger Ticho & Czarny Latawiec

Synagoga Pod Białym Bocianem Firlej

Agata Siniarska & Diego Agulló

Barbara

Golden Escort Jascha Lieberman Trio Peter Pleyer Graupe / Gropper / Lillinger Ibadet Ramadani & Band Przemek Michalak Band Christian Lillinger’s GRUND Vojto Monteur

Firlej

SEPTEMBER 21st 22nd 22nd OCTOBER 19 th 20 th NOVEMBER 23rd DECEMBER 7th 7th –11th 9 th 10 th 17th

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Barbara Hart Vertigo Firlej

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