Antje Hildebrandt Performance

Choreographic Forum - Session I

2012-01-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

Society for Dance Research

Choreographic Forum

Open to students, researchers, artists and practitioners

The Choreographic Forum is a new initiative aiming to support an exchange of thoughts on current dance and choreography. It is set up as a series of roundtable discussions, during which we reflect on a performance that we have watched together, in a theatre or elsewhere in London. We meet four times a year, and each session begins with two short statements by two invited speakers who then lead the discussion.

Session I:
Lizzi Kew-Ross: Without Warning

Joint viewings:

Wed 1 Feb, 6.30pm & Sun 5 Feb 2012, 2.00pm

The Old Vic Tunnels, Station Approach Rd, London, SE1 8SW

Discussion forum:
Wed 8 February 2012, 6.00-8.30pm
The Old Vic Tunnels Reading Room

Invited speakers: Mary Ann Hushiak (dramaturg) and

Dr Jonathan Clark (Head of Research TrinityLaban)

Free for SDR members
£7 full price / £5 concessions (students/freelance)

[SDR membership costs £30 / £26 concessions]

To sign up for our session and/or to be included in our email list, email: sdr.choreographic.forum@gmail.com

Please let us know if you have any suggestions about future performances you would be interested in watching and discussing.

The 2012 series is curated by Efrosini Protopapa, Lise Uytterhoeven & Antje Hildebrandt.

* Participants should book their own tickets online or by ringing The Old Vic Tunnels Box Office under 0844 871 7628 [Tickets are £15 full price / £12 concessions]

Research Student Conference 2012 at the University of Wolverhampton

2012-01-15T08:36:00.000-08:00

Open Call for Papers

4th Annual Research Student Conference in Art & Design hosted by the Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation (CADRE) at the University of Wolverhampton, UK

The conference, which takes place on the 14th May 2012, is intended as a forum for discussion, an informal survey of current PhD research and a social occasion for the facilitation of networking and exchange amongst PhD students in Art, Design, Craft, Performance and Social and Critical Theory. There is no over-arching theme to the conference this year and one of our aims is to let themes emerge from the submission process engendering new debates and discussions.

For the Call for Papers and more details check out the website at http://phdconference.wordpress.com/

Writing on Tino

2011-12-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

Tino Sehgal’s works can be seen as examples of so-called 'interactive' art practice. Having said this, I wanted to unpack this notion a bit further and draw out what the particular interactions in his work are constituted of and by. In This objective of that object (2004) the viewer enters a room where Sehgal’s five interpreters (the term which he uses, as the people involved are almost never trained performers but mainly carefully selected members of the local public) stand with their faces to the wall. They start half-singing, half-whispering the phrase ‘The objective of this work is to be the object of a discussion’, gradually getting louder before falling into silence. There are several options for how the piece can develop from this point. Whenever another visitor enters the space, the procedure starts from the beginning. If no one replies, the interpreters slowly fall to the floor. If the visitor responds verbally, for example by asking a question, the interpreters start a discussion and the potential for a dialogue arises. The nature of This objective of that object allows the visitors to have the responsibility and the power to influence the work in a significant way. Even if this sometimes fails on a practical level, the conceptual proposition is clear: no dialogue – no Art. The viewer is asked to take part, to respond to a question. If she refuses to act and remains silent the art work comes to an end; the interpreters symbolically ‘die’ and the piece is over. If, however, the visitor asks a clear question, the interpreters will start a discussion amongst themselves.

My first personal experience of Sehgal’s work took place in July 2011 at Manchester Art Gallery where I encountered Ann Lee (2010).16 Together with approximately fifteen other people I entered a small white cube that was completely empty. Awkwardness, where should I stand? How do I position myself in relation to the others? Minutes later a young girl, approximately thirteen years old, enters the room. Facing the wall of her choice she starts telling us how she was first two-dimensional, then three-dimensional and how she is now trying to exist in the fourth dimension with the help of Tino. Her voice is monotonous, her slow and controlled movements robotic yet fluent, her gaze calm and distant, never resting in one place. She appears fragile and vulnerable but then she directly addresses me me with a question: ‘Would you rather be too busy or not busy enough?’ Panic! Red cheeks. Silence. I say, ‘I would rather be too busy.’ She asks, ‘Why?’ I say, ‘Because then I don’t have time to think so much.’ She says, ‘Interesting’ and continues with her story. I can’t believe I just said that! What a ridiculous thing to say! It is clear that the tables have turned; she is completely in control of the situation. The piece continues with her narrating a story and ever so often addressing someone with a question. At the end, she quotes a long complicated passage of philosophical text and then asks the person next to me ‘Do you know what it means?’ The question every parent loathes is, more often than not, answered with ‘No, I don’t’. In both of Sehgal’s works described above the physical participation of the viewer, through her voice, is not only anticipated and wished for but essential to the work; without this dialogue the art work does not exist. The implications of this kind of work are that the viewer might feel that she is put ‘on the spot’, left in a position where she feels uncomfortable and exposed as her presence is highlighted and questioned. ‘[Sehgal’s] work [isn’t] naively optimistic about the pleasure of participation; he scores a razor-sharp path between the popular notion of ‘interactivity’ and the discomfort of alienation.’ (Wood, 2005)

A.H.

Deichkinder

2011-12-19T15:26:00.000-08:00

Concept: Nina Windisch

Performance: Nina Windisch & Antje Hildebrandt

Camera: artelisa

So much fun!

Trio at APT

2011-12-05T07:04:00.000-08:00

This Thursday, 8th Dec, Trio Collective will be performing for the last time this year at the Private View of Q-Art's annual exhibition at APT Gallery (Deptford, London).

Another Chair Dance - A Duet will be on around 7.30pm but the space is open from 6-8pm. Come along and have a mulled wine with us!

http://www.q-artlondon.com/events/24-event/390-upcoming-event-q-arts-annual-exhibition-at-apt-gallery-thursday-8th-december

If I don't see you there, have a wonderful christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Autumn Events

2011-11-02T05:15:00.000-07:00

Hello World!
This autumn I'm involved in 3 events which I would like to invite you to. I'm performing a new short piece with Elena Koukoli, I'm curating and presenting an afternoon of performances with Stella Dimitrakopolou and Katerina Paramana in Sheffield and I'm presenting at a conference at the British Library. It would be great to see you at one or more of the events (see details below).

Stereotypology - a response to Katharine Tolladay's Spectrum
part of Metamorphose (4 - 25 Nov)
Private View: Friday 4 Nov 7-9pm (Performance times: 7.30pm & 8.30pm)
Islington Arts Factory, 2 Parkhurst Road, London, N7 0SF
http://www.islingtonartsfactory.org/

Performing Text / Reading Performance - An afternoon of live performance, video and installation works
part of Pandemic (5 - 12 Nov)
Saturday 12 Nov 4-7.30pm
Bank Street Arts, 32-40 Bank Street, Sheffield, S1 2DS
http://bankstreetarts.com/events/?Current

The Future of Arts Research Conference
Friday 18 Nov
Conference: 9.30-5pm at the British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB
Post-conference event: 5.30-9pm at the Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/artssocsci/thefutureofartsresearch.aspx

Happy autumn!

Slow Dance

2011-09-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

Slow Dance

by Laura & Lauren

Interactive Performance, 2010

Slow Dance is an interactive installation which establishes a fleeting relationship between the performer and their audience, creating an intimate moment in a public space.

Performance: Antje Hildebrandt

Photography: Laura & Lauren

Do It Yourself

2011-09-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

Do It Yourself

by Laura & Lauren

Interactive Performance, 2010

60-second performances (Straight Jump)

Performance: Maisie Whitehead and Antje Hildebrandt

Video: Laura & Lauren

Academic Summer

2011-07-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

As I approach the end of the first year of my PhD, I am 'on tour' with my performance lecture Open Offer for Elbow Room - A Silent Lecture this summer. After an initial presentation at the postgraduate student conference 'Production' in Wolverhampton last week, I will stop at Central School of Speech and Drama this Thursday, 14th July, as part of the 'Authoring Theatre' conference, after which I will meet other postgraduate students at the 'Life Beyond the PhD' conference at Cumberland Lodge (Windsor) in Mid-August and my final stop will be York St John University on Thursday 1 September where I will present/perform at the 'Philosophy & ... ' conference.

I will also be performing in Metrology by Katerina Paramana presented as part of STOFF - Stockholm Fringe Fest 2011 on Friday 26 August.

For information on any of the events, please see below:

http://www.authoringtheatre.org.uk/
http://www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk/our_conferences/forthcoming_conference_pages/Life+Beyond+the+PhD
http://w3.yorksj.ac.uk/arts/faculty-of-arts/events/philosophy-conference.aspx
http://www.stockholmfringe.com/

Happy (academic) summer everyone!

PRODUCTION - 3rd PhD Student Conference University of Wolverhampton

2011-06-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

Trio Collective at Chisenhale Dance Space

2011-05-25T09:29:00.001-07:00

Metrology

2011-05-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Metrology by Katerina Paramana, presented at The Place (London) as part of Resolution! 2011 and at the Centre for Creative Collaboration (London) as part of Making and Unmaking Text in January 2011.

Performers: Stella Dimitrakopoulou and Antje Hildebrandt

Photography: Dan Swallow

Count Two

2011-05-05T12:45:00.001-07:00

Count Two by Nicola Conibere, presented as part of DancEUnion, Southbank Centre (London) in March 2011, at Laban (London) and at Lakeside Arts Centre (Nottingham) in September 2010, and at The Place (London) as part of Resolution! 2010 in February 2010.

Count Two is supported by Arts Council England.

Performers: Gerard Bell, Antje Hildebrandt, Tim Jeeves, Helka Kaski, Elena Koukoli and Steffi Sachsenmaier

Photography: Guy Bell

I invite you to a performance

2011-05-05T12:33:00.001-07:00

I Invite You To A Performance by visual artist Dori Deng, presented at Central St Martins Degree Show (London) in June 2009.

Performance: Lauren Bridle and Antje Hildebrandt

Photography: Dori Deng

Detouring with Ania

2011-05-05T04:10:00.000-07:00

In September 2010 I took part in DIY 7: Detour – in search of alternatives for de/touring live art work, a professional development opportunity facilitated by Ania Bas at the Live Art Development Agency.I proposed a kind of mash-up project by 'recycling' the movement material from Count Two (a project I had been involved with by Nicola Conibere) and the costume design and concept of my site-specifc performance You Make Me Want To Loose You.

Photography and video: Ania Bas

Performing Sayings

2011-05-05T03:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Elena, Michelle, Stella, World

TASK #3: Collect, perform and record three sayings.

Definition of saying: a well-known and wise statement which often has a meaning that is different from the simple meanings of the words it contains. (definition from Cambridge Dictionary Online)

Notes: You can choose to take sayings from your native language and directly translate them into English (they don’t have to make sense). The actual saying should appear written or verbally sometime/somewhere before, during or after the performance. You can choose whatever medium you feel fit to perform and record your sayings and you should post them online.

I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Antje Hildebrandt (Director)

Canis Lupus Familiaris

2011-05-05T03:18:00.000-07:00

Maria Kefirova’s Canis Lupus Familaris was the first piece of the second evening of DancEUnion, a three day contemporary dance festival of new talent from across Europe hosted at Southbank Centre in March 2011. The piece both troubled and fascinated me with its provocation and proposition on spectatorship. The set-up consisted of an unproportionate big screen placed awkwardly at the front of the stage which obscured most of the stage itself. Next to it was a chair. The performer enters, comes next to the screen and demands ‘I need someone to sit in the chair’. No reaction from the audience. Awkward shuffling around, nervous looking around, the paws of my hands are starting to sweat. She repeats her demand, and when no one volunteers, she reaffirms ‘I’m serious’. More awkward silence. Finally a man stands up and comes forward. Relief. As he enters the stage and takes place on the chair a close-up of his face appears on the screen. I start to laugh and at the same time think ‘This is really mean’. The chair is located behind the screen so the man does not know that every small facial expression of his gets projected onto a big screen. I wonder what he will think when he realises what just happened. What follows is a short grotesque and slightly dominatrix performance in which the performer is wearing a dog mask and throws ice cubes towards the direction of the chair whilst telling a story about loneliness and love. Half of the time the audience does not know what is happening behind the screen but can only guess, the man however has the privilege of full vision. Then the performer asks him to leave. The whole thing repeats from the beginning. Another audience member is called on stage. However, the situation now has changed as we are no longer in the uncertain position of not-knowing but fully aware of what is going to happen. One could assign a certain exhibitionist quality to the next spectator as he enters the stage. Repeat. Next. This time a girl. But then something changes. The girl talks back at the performer. I realise that the interaction has been set-up. Or has it? All of a sudden I am not sure any more who is spectator and who is performer? Who has been informed and who has not? At the end of the performance I feel both betrayed and surprised, confused and disgusted as I wonder how bold and radical the performance really was. Were we, as spectators, used as a tool or were we generally contributing to the performance? Or, was the performance merely a comment on the calculated devises that are used in some performances to initiate audience participation? At the end I am left with more questions than answers, and that surely, is a good thing.

A.H.

Production

2011-05-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

If you visited the Move - Choreographing You exhibition at the Hayward Gallery between October 2010 and January 2011 you may have encountered Xavier LeRoy and Mårten Spångberg’s Production. It is also probable that you may have missed it. With no specific performance time scheduled or announced, the work by the French choreographer and the Swedish writer/critic acts as an intervention/performance event with a team of dancer-participants rather than performers. The participants, scattered around the gallery, rehearse movements of their choice from iconic works of post-modern dance on their iphones. As soon as a viewer stops to take a closer look at what they are doing the participants pause their dancing and directly ask the viewer a question ‘What are you looking for? Can I help you?’, or something along the lines. What follows this little ritual of interaction depends on the participation of the viewer(s). The encounters are meant to initiate conversations and discussions about dance, the exhibition, choreography, or life and work in general. A friend who visited the exhibition told me that they ended up discussing the benefits of eating cereal instead of bread for breakfast. The project is a provocation of course. It exposes some fundamentals about our relationship to performance. Instead of a passively being allowed to watch a performance, we are directly addressed and forced to acknowledge, defend and evaluate our position as viewers. However, what might first appear as a harsh denial of spectatorship, with the possibility of leading to embarrassment, is indeed an opportunity and possibility for exchange, equality and freedom for the viewer to choose, decide and channels their desires and expectations of the performance. There will be no more dancing but the participants will talk about anything with us, it is up to us to take responsibility for what we want to hear, see or experience. Notice the difference between the question ‘What are you looking for?’ and ‘What are you looking at?’. Yet, I am left questioning the future of what dance is and can be. Will we no longer dance in contemporary post- postmodern society? Will dance only be a valid form of artistic practice when placed in quotation marks? What are the possibilities and limitations of dance and communication? What are the possibilities and limitations of language and communication?

A.H.

Having the Blues

2011-05-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

As an example of franchised mass-produced audience participation may serve the phenomenon which is called Blue Men Group. I have experienced this spectacle twice, not because I am a fan but because of circumstance. What surprised me most was that ten years ago in New York, when they were just starting out, the show was almost exactly the same as when I saw it in Berlin a couple of weeks ago. The only thing added was audience participation. A mix between old-fashioned clowning tricks, high-energy drumming, abject action-painting and 3-D visual effects, the show is a huge success in the U.S., Berlin and Tokyo. In our interactive society of iphones and facebook people, especially young ones, seem to be thrilled by the idea of participation. I suppose there is somewhat a pleasure involved in seeing ‘normal, ordinary’ people called up on stage to ’perform’. It is a mix of empathy and Schadenfreude that is at stake here. On the one hand one could argue that the Blue Men succeed in getting the audience involved in their humorous show by literally entertaining the crowds for the 120 minutes of the performance. You will not be bored. On the other hand, and after reflection, a feeling of entrapment and manipulation leaves a bitter taste in my mouth as I question the purpose and intentions behind the anonymous blue faces. Was the participation genuine, did we get fooled, or used? How exactly did we benefit from this expensive interactive experience?

A.H.

On Corrieri, Müller and Ribot

2011-05-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

Musical Pieces is a series of performances that work with the production of sound in theatre. By using simple actions and few props (a microphone, a tennis ball, a glass of water) Augusto Corrieri plays with theatre’s mechanisms of revelation, concealment, and deception. He writes: ‘The choreographies propose different ways of dissociating the voice from the body, the sound from the object, and the effect from the cause.’ (quote from his website). The unspectacular, simple and quiet nature of the work and the calm and delicate performance by Corrieri makes us reconsider that, in the theatre, what we hear is sometimes not what we see and what we see is sometimes not what we hear. The four sections are cleverly structured backwards so that the ending reveals the beginning. Having seen the performance twice, I have discovered more and more details each time and what by some people has been described as ‘an exercise in concentration’ never ceases to surprise and playfully remind me of the role of the spectator in performance.

In 60 Minutes of Opportunism, in which I was participating as a performer, Ivana Müller uses recorded and live voice to reflect and comment on some of the most prominent issues in performance today; the idea of public and private, the issue of liveness and presence, the relationship of author and performer, and the act of performing and watching. She writes

Dancing on a thin line between philosophy, comedy and poetry, one can see 60 Minutes of Opportunism as a one-woman show (with occasional guests), as a manifest on being “public,” as an experimental role-play or as a piece that questions the authority of one another, performer, choreographer, and audience. (quote from her website)

The humourus yet sometimes simplistic text acts as a constant reminder of the situation of performer and spectator in the theatre but also uses the more serious theme of terrorism as an allegory.

La Ribot’s Llamame Mariachi is a playful investigation into the idea of time, both in performance and in life. The performance is divided into two distinct sections. The first consists of a 25 minute video after which follows a one hour live performance. The one-shot is not edited and therefore appears to be happening in real time. It is a chaotic visual rollercoaster filmed in a huge warehouse with each of the performers filming one section. Here, the images are produced by movement, we can see fragments of the body as the camera is passed from one hand to the other. In stark contrast to the video stands the second section which is performed in carefully controlled and sometimes painstaking slow-motion, therefore also happening in real time. The way we perceive time in this performance is altered as we become aware of the effect that speed and slowness have on our own bodies as spectators. The set resembles a big table full of books, from Bausch to Merleau-Ponty, from which the three performers take turns quoting passages of text. Their brilliant performance is marked by their struggle to correctly pronounce the words and there is a pleasure involved in watching them exposing and playing with their accents. Here again I am reminded of the different systems in which language and dance operate. We cannot quote movement but we can quote text. How might dance move towards a system of referentially that becomes legitimate? Is this even a desirable project and what might be the objections and benefits?

A.H.

Not in BADco.mpany

2011-05-05T02:50:00.000-07:00

Review of BADco.’s Memories Are Made of This…
Chelsea Theatre – 8 November 2008

8.08pm: The show has started without me noticing. Busy reading the programme notes for Memories Are Made of This… for the third time, I missed the five members of Croatian performance collective BADco. ‘invading the space’ – our space that is. The bar area in Chelsea Theatre. It becomes clear immediately - we are in for a rather unusual performance. No three-minute call, no proscenium arch, no reminder to turn off the phone, no artificial darkness, no anonymity.

In the short ‘introduction’ that follows we are invited to join the performers in the two gallery spaces as they explain that they wanted to expand the walls to make a bigger space and put fake grass on the floor so that we ‘could all sit down and have a picnic’. Then we are lead into the auditorium.

The space has been transformed: five long tables, at each a performer, five audience members, a radio and a photocopy of F Scott Fitzgerald’s story The Crack-Up (on which the performance is loosely based). Are they memories?

The room is quickly and quietly filled with whispers. There is a feeling of secrecy and intimacy in the room.

There are fragments of dance too. I cannot stop looking at the pregnant dancer’s belly. She is so close to me that I imagine I can hear her baby’s heartbeat.

And there is more text. More words. More movement. Dancing in front of a ‘snowing’ screen. Incidental music playing from the radio. It comes and it goes. Words appear as quickly as they disappear. It is the images that stay in my mind. One dancer moving and speaking in Croatian in front of the screen. One of the other performers who is watching her laughs out loud at what she is saying. The atmosphere is intensive but relaxed.

It’s the end. There’s applause. Bows. The usual.

As I think about what just happened on my way home, it occures to me - Memories are made of this.

A.H.

falling still

2011-05-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

Falling and stillness are the themes that I’m exploring in this work. I experiment with ideas around the physical and psychological act of falling and the impact it has on the body, and on the audience. I use task-based exercises that focus mainly on the physicality of the body and therefore my work becomes very visual. Here, I'm interested in relating the body and the mind, practice and theory, research and performance.

Choreography and Performance: Antje Hildebrandt

Composer: Julien-Robert Legault Salvail

Video: Ibrahim Kayoueche

falling still was presented as part of Summer Dancing at Coventry University in June 2008.

Bibliography (Work in Progress)

2011-05-05T02:25:00.000-07:00

Aaron, M. (2006). The Birth of the Spectator. In Spectatorship: The Power of Looking On (pp. 5-23). London: Wallflower.

Banes, S. & Lepecki, A. (Eds.). (2006). The Senses in Performance. London: Routledge.

Bennett, S. (1997). Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. New York: Routledge.

Bishop, C. (Ed.). (2006). Participation. London: Whitechapel; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Blau, H. (1990). Repression, Pain, and the Participation Mystique. In The Audience (pp.144-209). Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Blau, H. (1987). Odd, Anonymous Needs: The Audience in a Dramatized Society. In Performing Arts Journal 10 (1). (pp. 34-42).

Bourriaud, N. (2002). Postproduction: Culture as screenplay: How art reprograms the world. New York: Lukas & Sternberg.

Bourriaud, N. (1998). Relational Aesthetics. Les presses du rèel.

Conroy, C. (2010). Theatre & The Body. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Pelgrave Mcmillan.

Etchells, T. (2004). A six-thousand-and-forty-seven-word manifesto on liveness in three parts with three interludes. In A. Heathfield and H. Glendinning (Eds.), Live: Art and Performance (pp.210-217). London: Tate Publishing.

Fischer-Lichte, E. (1997). The Show and the Gaze of Theatre. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Fish, S. (1980). Is There a Text in This Class?. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Freshwater, H. (2009). Theatre & Audience. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Pelgrave Mcmillan.

Goldberg, R. (1993). Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. London: Thames & Hudson.

Handke, P. (1969). Offending the audience. In Kaspar and other plays. New York: Hill and Wang.

Heathfield, A. (2009). Intangibles of performance. In ENPARTS (European Network of Performing Arts) Babylon Europe: Boundless languages (pp. 40-47). International Conference Proceedings November 29th 2008. Venice: Marsilio Editori.

Heathfield, A. (2004). Alive. In A. Heathfield and H. Glendinning (Eds.), Live: Art and Performance (pp.6-15). London: Tate Publishing.

Jauss, H.R. (1982). Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kunst, B. (2009). The Economy of Proximity: Dramaturgical Work in Contemporary Dance. In Performance Research 14 (3), (pp. 80-87). London: Routledge.

Lepecki, A. (2005). Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement. London; New York: Routledge.

Lepecki, A . (Ed.). (2004). Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on dance and performance theory. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.

Lepecki, A. (2004). Concept and Presence: The Contemporary European Dance Scene. In A. Carter (Ed.), Rethinking Dance History: A Reader (pp.170-181). London; New York: Routledge.

Malzacher, F. (2004). There is a Word for People Like You: Audience – The Spectator as Bad Witness and Bad Voyeur. In J. Helmer & F. Malzacher (Eds.), Not Even a Game Anymore: The Theatre of Forced Entertainment (pp.120-135). Berlin: Alexander Verlag Berlin.

McAulay, G. (2000). The Spectator in the Space. In Space in Performance: Making Meaning in the Theatre (pp. 235-277). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962, 1999). The Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge.

Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In Visual and Other Pleasures. London: Macmillan.

Phelan, P. (1993). The Ontology of Performance: Representation without Reproduction. In Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (pp.146-166). London: Routledge.

Puchner, M. (2002). Stage Fright: Modernism, Anti-theatricality, and Drama. Baltimore; London: John Hopkins University Press.

Rancière, J. (2009). The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso.

Read, A. (2009). Theatre, Intimacy & Engagement: The Last Human Venue. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ridout, N. (2006). Embarrassment: The Predicament of the Audience.In Stage Fright, Animals and Other Theatrical Problems (pp.70-95). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sörenson, A. (2008). Art Object. Ballettanz Dance in Art: Ballettanz das Jahrbuch 2008 (pp. 74-81). Berlin: Friedrich Berlin Verlag.

Open Offer - Performance & Creation

2011-05-05T02:16:00.000-07:00

Performance

Open Offer for Elbow Room is a twenty-five minute solo performance for an audience of approximately twenty, depending on the size of the space. It was performed three times as part of the Graduate School Showcase on Wednesday the 23^rd September, at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm, in Studio 6 at Laban. As the spectator enters the space, which is completely empty except for a line of hazard tape dividing the space into two halves, she is given an envelope by an usher which reads the following: Here & Now (Sit & Open). The spectator usually sits down on the floor in front of the tape, opens the envelope, attempts to read all the letters in the letter, waits, and then the performance begins. Or has it already?

Open Offer is not created for the theatre with its implication of collective/individual spectatorship and all the other expectations that a theatrical space carries. Out of the comfort zone of the darkened auditorium. There is no room for anonymity here. The piece also does not exist in an exhibition sense; for example, a durational performance installation in a gallery, such as La Ribot’s Panoramix, in which people are free to choose where and how they position themselves in relation to the performer (sitting/ standing/ lying). Through the traditional formal setting and the seated position of the audience the distinction between performer and spectator can be challenged. It was also not my intention to leave it up to the spectator when to enter and exit. Open Offer has a definite beginning and an end. The spectators need to be there with me throughout the performance. This piece is about time and duration and therefore it is important that everyone is there for the whole duration of the event. This fact offers opportunities for meanings to emerge.

[The ...] fact that in theatre – as opposed to other art forms – the production inevitably takes place within the same space and time as the reception puts the audience in a risky position: that of sharing the responsibility of being a part of the whole. (Malzacher, 2004, p.122)

Not placed in a theatrical setting but also not designed as an installation to be wandered through, Open Offer occupies an awkward space. Not only this, it takes place in a studio, more specifically, a dance studio at Laban with all the connotations that this carries. My intention was to make use of these implications in the performance rather than ignoring them. This means to think about the studio both as a space of production and as a time of knowledge. The ground that we, the spectators and I, both stand on is quite literally common; the ground supports us in our co-presence in the space.

Yet, the space is divided into two (through hazard tape) and there are definite boundaries that are established from the beginning. Abrams notes ‘the possibility that in fact the separation between performer and spectator must remain clear for participatory performance to question the relationship between the two’ (2003, p.xiv). As Heathfield points out,

Performance operates by means of a performing subject testing out his or her relation to a site [and] enables artists and spectators – made inseparable from each other – to experience and to think the extent to which a given identity, or indeed subjectivity itself, is moored to a physical place. (2004, p.11)

For Open Offer, I work within the theatrical convention but without the hierarchy of the stage. We are in a studio, yet the mechanics of the theatrical machine can be revealed even more in this environment. We still have a contract, an unspoken agreement.

Creation

When everything has been done before, where does one start? I started the process of creation by revisiting other people’s work. It seems invaluable in today’s (art) world of recycling and deejaying to place oneself in relation to past works. By doing so, new things can emerge.

I became interested in the idea of dramaturgy and how the relationship between text and act(ion), text and stillness, text and body, and text and image can be framed by this. In Open Offer, I am interested in the potential of performance to communicate at a non-verbal level, recognising the importance of silence in this situation. In this way, the gaps between language and enactment become explicit. The rules of how the piece is structured are revealed and made visible and accessible for the spectator from the beginning of the performance. No magic. No make-believe. My props represent the essentials and, at the same time, the realities of performance (and life). Food, water, money. The value of the coins in the cash-box was initially three pounds, less than what I would normally invest in making a performance and less than what I would normally pay to see a performance. Quite literally, with the contribution of the spectator, the value of Open Offer increases with each performance. I decided on a performance style that was matter-of-fact, task-based and non-expressive in order to not distract from the performance itself. I decided that, in terms of timing, things would take as long as they needed to; there is no attempt to speed procedures up. Things are produced right here & now in front of our eyes. No magic. No make-believe.

I am joining the school of patience, in which performance does not equal spectacle and where the people who are working are the spectators as well as the performers. This school is marked by absence, stillness, nothingness, silence, pause, slowness and emptiness. We are trying to make space in order to observe and engage with the act of looking itself. There is a desire to take a more subtle and quiet approach to making performance. Augusto Corrieri (2008) writes about his process of developing his solo Quartet: ‘the “not doing” becomes just as important as the doing; there is an attempt at giving space to the apparently passive elements (stillness and silence), and not just to theatre’s traditionally active ones (movement and sound).’ In 1952, more than fifty years ago, John Cage proposed this strategy for music when he wrote 4’33, his most famous and controversial composition for any instrument, in which the musician does not play a single note for four minutes and thirty-three seconds: silence as music.

My rationale of working with stillness, as opposed to continuous movement, derives from Lepecki’s analyses that ‘the insertion of stillness in dance, the deployment of different ways of slowing down movement and time, are particularly powerful propositions for other modes of rethinking action and mobility’ (2005, p.15). He continues:

Stillness is no longer dance’s other, but it remains outside dance, as a potential, as a ‘system’ which allows the body to ‘incline’ itself towards dancing. Stillness is potential dancing, it is perhaps even the primal source for dancing [as Paxton demonstrates in an approach to perceiving movement which he calls the Small Dance], but it is not quite dancing. (2000, p.342)

What Lepecki is proposing, is a change in the ontology of dance: one that is marked by absence. ‘Under such conditions, the body finds itself in an unstable situation dominated by uncertainty, and staging the performance asserts its absence and disappearance, rather than its existence and presence’ (Dominguez, 2008, p.109). Through stillness itself, we may reconsider our own presence in this situation.

With no other performers, no collaborators, no set, no lights, no music, no costume and hardly any props or make-up, I find myself here & now, in front of you, ready to begin.

Bibliography

Corrieri, A. (2006). Words for later: Quartet and the poetics of performance. Dartington. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from Augusto Corrieri Web site:

http://www.augustocorrieri.com/Words%20for%20later%20-%20Augusto%20Corrieri.pdf

Dominguez, A. (2008). Unstable. In Ballettanz Dance in Art: Ballettanz das Jahrbuch 2008 (pp.104-109). Berlin: Friedrich Berlin Verlag.

Heathfield, A. (2004). Alive. In A. Heathfield and H. Glendinning (Eds.), Live: Art and Performance (pp.6-15). London: Tate Publishing.

Lepecki, A. (2000). Still: On the Vibratile Microscopy of Dance. In G. Brandstetter & H. Volckers (Eds.), Remembering the Body (pp.332-366). Austria: Hatje Cantz Publishers.

Open Offer for Elbow Room - The Letters

2011-05-05T02:03:00.000-07:00

Laban, 23^rd September 2009

Dear Spectator

She invites you to read her performance.

Your contribution is appreciated.

55% + 1 L

Not quite Still distinguished.

Her name: Antje, Origin of ‘Antje’: German, Meaning of ‘Antje’: Grace

The apple doesn’t far from the tree.

sides

If I received a nickel for every time I saw someone as beautiful as you, I'd have five cents.

Do you have a map? Because I just keep getting lost in your eyes.

If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together.

Did the sun come up or did you just smile at me?

You must be a hell of a thief because you stole my heart from across the room.

Do you have a Band Aid? I just scraped my knee falling for you.

I must be a snowflake, because I've fallen for you.

I think there's something wrong with my eyes because I can't take them off you.

Your eyes are bluer than the Atlantic Ocean, and baby I'm lost at sea!

I think you just stole something. My heart.

As the penny drops, Brown disappears from the scene.

J.B. or Of the presence of the body.

10. Absence or The End.

Yours sincerely,

A.H.

Central Line, 24^th September 2009

Dear Performer

I invite her to read my letter.

I didn’t have any change on me, sorry. Are people looking at me?

55% of.... Water? Fish? Too many fish in the sea? Is she feeling sick?

What is not quite still distinguished? Did she fall in love making this piece?

Does Antje really mean Grace? Is she really German? She looks Polish. Is her name really Antje. [Yes, see programme notes] Why does the arrow point both ways? Is anyone else really bored?

Is she religious? Does she believe in paradise? Does she believe in love? Is she going against the apple? No chance, she will never win, she’s much heavier. I wonder how much she weighs. She doesn’t look like a dancer. Why is she using an apple? It’s so cliché. Does her family know she’s doing this? Is that her dad over there? I wonder what he thinks.

Is it a verb or a noun?

Where did she get those from? I’m sure she’s not serious right now. Why is she so serious? eX-boyfriends? Is this about love? Is this about seX? Is she gay or straight? Is this past, present, future? Maps, crosses, Trio.

Is this clever or is this silly? I think she might have a problem with making/taking things too literal. Technically the sign is brown too. And the coins are, too.

I hope I’m not the only one that knows all the songs from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack!? HE’S NOT REALLY DEAD! What moves you? I saw her performing last year. I lost two friends to cancer. I suppose he was right: You have to love dancing to stick to it. This is why I stopped. Is that her voice? That is the best German accent ever! I wish she would have turned on some music instead. I shall suggest that to her when she’s finished. I’m possibly having ‘the time of my life’ right now. Isn’t that the title of a book?

Will she come back? Should we applaud? This is definitely The End!? I wonder if I can find that penny that I put in. What if I take all? I wonder how much this is. What could I buy with this? Hummus. A cup of tea. Dark chocolate. Two cigarettes. A pint. What time is it? Goodbye, I’m off to the bar.

Yours sincerely,

A.H.

11 Burgess Road, 25^th September 2009

Dear Spectator

She invites you to read [1] her letter.

Without you, this performance does not exist.

Without you, this performance will not happen.

Without you - here and now - this time and space is wasted.

Without you, I have no reason to be.

The percentage of water in a woman’s body plus the amount of water that she’s drinking right now.

The symbol for fish.

Water. Body. Difference.

Zurrutada Pieza Distinguida #32 by La Ribot.

Fish. Water. Difference. Body.

The human condition. From here to there. We. Two.

Falling in love.

Literally.

Slowly.

Repeatedly.

She believes in honesty. http://www.babynology.com/meaning-antje-f24.html

Apple – Eve - Fallen from Grace

the fact of becoming different; variety or novelty; a different set of clothes; money exchanged for its equivalent in a larger denomination or in a different currency; the balance of money when the amount paid is larger than the amount due; coins of a small denomination; to make or become different; to replace with or exchange for another; to give and receive (something) in return; to give or receive (money) in exchange for its equivalent sum in a smaller denomination or different currency; to put on other clothes; to get off one bus; train or airliner and on to another. [2]

EK: Love is a resistance to the usual economy of giving and receiving. In the act of giving myself over to another I do not demand return for my investment, I destabilise the usual economics of exchange. [PAUSE] This is the fantasy we have of love.[3]

To stand in front of other people. To be there. To be present. To be visible.[4]

8. Her trainers and Gordon in our ‘current economic climate’.

9. Bad, Le Sacre Du Printemps, Loops, The Time of My Life, Beat It, Blaubart, Exercise Piece, Be My Baby, Thriller, Cafe Müller, Changing Steps, She's Like the Wind, Earth Song, Kontakthof, Rebus, Hungry Eyes, Billie Jean, 1980, Solo, Stay, Wanna Be Starting Something, Nelken, Sounddance, Yes, The Way You Make Me Feel, Two Cigarettes in the Dark, Blue Studio: 5 Fragments, You Don't Own Me, Man in the Mirror, Viktor, Fractions, Hey Baby, Smooth Criminal, Palermo Palermo, Exchange, Overload, Remember the Time, Nur Du, Beach Birds, Love Is Strange, Heal the World, Der Fensterputzer, Beach Birds for Camera, Where Are You Tonight?, Black or White, O Dido, Biped, In the Still of the Night, Gone Too Soon, Wiesenland, Interscape, Big Girls Don't Cry, Dangerous, Für die Kinder von gestern, heute und morgen, Fluid Canvas, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Scream, Rough Cut, Squaregame, Cry to Me, Stranger in Moscow, Vollmond, Split Sides, Love Man, They Don’t Care About Us, Bamboo Blues, Views on Stage, Do You Love Me, Invincible, Sweet Mambo, Eyespace, Some Kind of Wonderful, You Rock My World, New Piece, Nearly Ninety, These Arms of Mine.

The End of Jérôme Bel’s The Last Performance, and André Lepecki.

A tribute to some of the famous people that have fallen to their deaths this year: Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham and Patrick Swayze.

You may take what you have given. You may take what you have not given. You may leave what you have given. You may take what you have been given.

You may leave what you have been given.

You may leave.

The Here & Now.

Yours sincerely,

A.H.

[1] to look at and understand or take in (written or printed matter); to look at and say aloud; to have a certain wording; to interpret in a specified way; to interpret the significance or meaning of; to register or show; to make out the true nature or mood of; to interpret (signs, characters, etc.) other than by visual means; to have sufficient knowledge of (a language) to understand the written word; to undertake a course of study in (a subject); to gain knowledge by reading; to hear and understand, esp. when using a two-way radio.

from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Read

[2] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/change

[3] Quote from Building a Potential Structure - A script of the Performance by Patricia Lennox-Boyd

[4] Quote from A six-thousand-and-forty-seven-word manifesto on liveness in three parts with three interludes by Tim Etchells

Teaching

2011-05-05T01:44:00.001-07:00

I have been leading workshops and classes in contemporary dance and somatic practice for children, young people and adults since 2003. I recently started teaching on the BA Dance at the University of Wolverhampton; subject areas include: choreographic strategies, improvistion and dance history.

Photography: Hanne Carstens

Curation

2011-05-05T01:36:00.000-07:00

Halfway House @ House Gallery presents

The way we read: performance / text / image

30th July 2010

If seeing establishes our way of being in the world, how do we read this world? How do we interpret what we see, the people and things that we encounter in our life? How is meaning produced and manipulated in this context? We can never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between ourselves and the object. This relationship between what we see and what we know is therefore never fixed. Things are not as they seem.

The way we read is curated by performance maker and choreographer Antje Hildebrandt who will be presenting her performance lecture Open Offer for Elbow Room. The evening also includes work by artists Stuart Alexander and Dori Deng.

Social Porn 2010

2011-05-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Social Porn 2010 by Regina Fichtner, presented at Atomino Experimental Art Festival, Crimmitschau, Germany in August 2010.

encounters

2011-05-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

encounters, site-specific performance installation by Laura Bridges | Lauren Willis, presented at Shoreditch Town Hall (London) in May 2009.

Photography: Lee Gentry

Just Hanging Around

2011-05-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Just Hanging Around, choreographed and directed by Kathleya Afanador, presented as part of Shadoworks by London Sinfonietta Collective, Southbank Centre (London).

Trio minus Michelle plus You

2011-05-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

Concept and Creation: Trio Collective

Performance: Dimitrius Dimitrakopoulou, Stella Dimitrapopoulou, Antje Hildebrandt, Elena Koukoli

Presented at Southwark Playhouse (London) in October 2010.

Learning to Swim

2011-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Learning to Swim by London-based visual artist Katherine Tolladay, presented as part of Propeller Island at Elevator Gallery (London) in March 2010.

Performance: Elena Koukoli and Antje Hildebrandt

Dancing

2011-05-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

These are images from a photoshot I did with Martyn Boston in Nottingham in the Spring of 2008.

Photography: Martyn Boston

Building a Potential Structure

2011-05-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

Building a Potential Structure by London-based visual artist Patricia Lennox Boyd, presented at Chelsea MFA Degree Show in September 2009.

Performance: Elena Koukoli and Antje Hildebrandt

Photography: Patricia Lennox Boyd

Another Chair Dance

2011-05-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

Concept and Creation: Trio Collective

Performance: Stella Dimitrakopoulou, Antje Hildebrandt, Elena Koukoli

Another Chair Dance was presented as part of Parallax 1 at the Old Police Station (London) and as part of Q-Art Convenor at the University of the Arts (London) in March and April 2011.

re-re-twothousandth-re

2011-05-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

re-re-twothousandth-re incorporates dance, installation, text and video. Three performers move in front of four laptops where several performances made in 2003 are reproduced. Instead of learning the choreographies the dancers resist rehearsal choosing to copy the movement from the videos. Building upon pre-existing choreographies and a range of styles, this piece offers an unsettling, funny, playful and challenging landscape of movement, reflecting a response to different contexts of space, time and bodies and the memory they evoke.

Concept / Creation: Trio Collective
Performers: Stella Dimitrakopoulou, Antje Hildebrandt, Elena Koukoli
Lighting Design: Ruben Plaza Garcia

re-re-twothousandth-re was presented at The Place (London) as part of Resolution! 2011 and at the Arena Theatre (Wolverhampton) in January 2011.

Trio

2011-05-04T11:54:00.000-07:00

Trio was developed using processes of reconstructing three artworks: Trio A (Yvonne Rainer), Triadic Ballet (Oscar Schlemmer), and France/tour/detour/deux/enfants, Mouvement 3: Connu/Géométrie/Géographie (Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville). Trio consists of several sections of task-based actions and simple movement. Language was crucial in the development and performance of the work, and appears in one form or another in each section. It is used to translate Rainer’s choreography, conduct on-stage interviews (taken from the Godard film from the 1970’s) as well as through playing filmed interviews throughout the entire duration of the performance. Language interacts with movement on-stage and becomes part of the theatrical set.From the contents of the three original pieces we present themes like geography, home, school and the relationships between them. Trio is intentionally un-spectacular and takes an ironic approach to presenting a traditional dance piece; on the threshold between seriousness and absurdity.

Concept, Creation, Performance: Trio Collective - Stella Dimitrakopoulou, Elena Koukoli, Antje Hildebrandt and Michelle Lynch

Trio was presented in June 2009 at Laban, London, UK and July 2009 as part of Sodaworks, Uferstudios, Berlin, Germany.

You Make Me Want To Loose You

2011-05-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Performance at Fringe Hamburg as part of the Open Air Special in July 2010.

You Make Me Want To Loose You is an experimental investigation into the human relationship between body and its surroundings. The structured movement improvisation is strongly influenced by the site it is performed in (usually public spaces and/or outdoors). The performance plays in the Here & Now, with moments of stillness and movement, with intimacy and publicity. The dancers, dressed in boiler suit and cardboard box, cannot see but must negotiate themselves through the strangeness of her own performance.In this playful act of exploration, the performers kindly interact with the audience, evoking moments of surprise, empathy and wonder.

’Everything which sets men in motion must go through their minds; but what form it will take in the mind will depend very much upon the circumstances.’ (Friedrich Engels)

Concept: Antje Hildebrandt

Performance: Johanna Winkel and Antje Hildebrandt

Hybrid in Italy

2011-05-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

Hybrid was choosen by the Arts Council to represent England at the Biennale for Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean which took place in Bari, Italy, in May 2008.

Photography: NeAL Peruffo

Dancers: Lisa Holmes, Stephanie McMann, Selina Pagano, Chrissie Powell, Fiona Smith

Open Offer in Manchester

2011-05-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

Open Offer for Elbow Room was presented as part of emergency 10 at the greenroom in Manchester in October 2010.

Concept, Creation and Performance: Antje Hildebrandt

Photography: Tamsin Drury

Review:

'Open Offer for Elbow Room is one of those rare poetic performances that understands the necessary co-dependance of spectator and performer. Through small and subtle re-arrangments of objects and actions, the performer literally writes words and sentences in the audience's mind. Drawing on linguistics, the history of dance, performance art, and the study of consciousness, Open Offer for Elbow Room is a compelling meditation on the ways in which our thoughts can produce things, and how things can produce thoughts.'

Augusto Corrieri (Performance Artist)

Open Offer for Elbow Room

2011-05-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

Intentionally un-spectacular, Open Offer for Elbow Room takes an ironic approach to presenting performance and its reading; playing with words, language, and political and symbolic references. On the threshold between seriousness and stupidity the performance becomes more and more sophisticated as the simple structure of the work is revealed.

Open Offer has been presented at The Basement (Brighton), Arnolfini (Bristol), Deda (Derby), greenroom (Manchester), House Gallery (London) and at ABUNDANCE - Dance & Choreography Festival in Karlstad (Sweden) between December 2010 and October 2011.

Concept, Creation and Performance: Antje Hildebrandt

Hybrid

2011-05-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

Photography: Michael Huxley

Hybrid is a contemporary dance piece exploring idiosyncratic movement material and performance qualities of five dancers. It is an investigation into the relationship between music and dance as well as choreography, time and space. Using improvisation as the main creative tool, the choreography has emerged through collaboration and a constant dialogue between the dancers, the choreographer and the composer. With a sound score born out of the hybrid relationship between dance and music, this piece seeks to contextualise and diminish the ascendancy between the arts - treating them as one and the same.

Hybrid was presented as part of University Dance Company at DeMontfort University in February 2007. It toured nationally and internationally in the Spring and Summer of 2007 and was re-presented as part of episodes10 at Nottingham Playhouse in February 2010.

Choreography: Antje Hildebrandt

Sound Score: Adam Weikert

Dancers: Sasha Eccles, Lisa Holmes, Selina Pagano, Chrissie Powell, Fiona Smith