Photos: Julia Jaksch & Nils Limberg "Nobody is quite sure how Crow was born. Different stories were told. . . " –Ted Hughes
This past November I premiered my first solo, a devised physical theatre piece inspired by Max Porter, Ted Hughes, the Dadaists, and the centennial anniversary of a period of insane political turbulence. 100 years ago explosions on all fronts: literal ones on the battlefields of Europe and figurative ones in the field of art. It's been 100 years since von Freytag-Loringhoven's and Duchamp's God and Fountain, respectively...well, depending on whom you ask. 100 years since the United States of America declared war on Germany. 100 years since the Boshevik Revolution. 100 years since Tzara wrote his second Dada manifesto. And here we are again. 100 years ago might just have been yesterday. Crow swoops in in a final attempt to charm/seduce/persuade/threaten humanity to come to its senses – the natural, physical kind, not the detached, rational kind. But as powerful and clever as she is, nothing Crow has up her sleeves can stop the neverending "insance spectacle of collective homicide" to which she has played witness for hundreds of years. A failed messenger, a condemned Cassandra, she must carry the weight of her vision alone in grief. A solitary black feather remains as a symbol of her dashed hopes for revolution.
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The Physical Theatre Department at the Folkwang UdK and the Maschinenhaus Essen are partnering for the fourth time to host the FULL SPIN International Physical Theatre Festival from July 5-9, 2017 at the Maschinenhaus Essen. This festival is one-of-a-kind in Germany and this year will be particularly monumental, as it will coincide with the founding of the Physical Theatre Netzwerk, which will serve as a collective cultural-political voice for the physical theatre scene in NRW and beyond.
My fellow physical theatre students and I are very excited to be playing host this year to an inspiring group of international physical theatre artists for four fully packed days of theatre. You can see the full schedule HERE. Folks are coming in from far and wide: Beirut, London, Amsterdam, Seoul, Brussels . . . For my part, I am most looking forward to seeing Lebensraum by Jakop Ahlbom at the Grillo Theater in Essen and Sabine Molenaar’s performance of That’s It at the Maschinenenhaus and to participating in workshops with Trygve Wakenshaw and with the Duda Paiva Company. I will also be performing at the FULL SPIN OPEN SPACE on Sunday, July 9th. From 11:00am to 1:00pm in the Meierei on the Folkwang Campus in Essen-Werden we Folkwang students will perform selected devised scenes from the past three semesters and the acting students from the Chung Ang University in Seoul will be performing a 50 minute piece. There will also be readings of self-written work and food & beverage catering to round out the morning. The entrance is free! Tickets are still available for the entire festival but space is limited. So if you’re in the area, reserve a spot today (tickets@fullspinfestival.de) and join us! You can also follow the Festival on Facebook, Instagram (@fullspinfestival) and Twitter (@fullspin_essen). We will be posting live every day. (I'm managing the social media!) This past September I attended a truly fantastic workshop on the topics of pantomime, mime corporel, Marceau-style, and Meyerhold's biomechanics taught by Anke Gerber, Oliver Pollack, Lionel Ménard, and Tony de Maeyer. This workshop is hosted by the Mime Centrum Berlin and by the Plateforme organization and has been taking place for the past three years. Not only were the instructors phenomenal, the studio in which we worked was absolutely beautiful: Studio 2 of the Kunsthaus Bethanien is a large, bright room with natural light and high ceilings in a castle-like ex-hospital located in Kreuzberg. Every morning we looked out from the tall open windows over the lovely courtyard and park below. The days were full of hard, physical work, inspiring challenges, in-depth exploration of the different styles, and great conversations over shared meals. Our week together culminated in an hour-long performance open to the public, during which we showcased several pieces we had been developing over the week and our work with ensemble-based, improvised movement. Aside from our group work, I was involved in a Marceau-styled performance of "Le Manteu" directed by Lionel Ménard and based on the short story "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol, and in a piece created with two other colleagues based on "Les Lavandieres," one of Marceau's dream studies. After such an intense week, it was certainly hard to say goodbye, but the relationships formed will surely lead to future creative collaborations, to which I am already looking forward! In case you're interested in participating yourself, check back in with the Mime Centrum & Plateforme next year for registration details. Highly recommended! Photos: Plateforme
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Header photo: Carsten Dapper
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