Friday, December 21, 2018


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Praktikum bei AKS @ K'ARTS
Text und Fotos: Alina Jacobs

„Change no thing the dance starts here and now“ oder „change all things“?! Das war DIE Frage, die sich die Master-Studenten des Choreographie Departments von K’ARTS (Korea National University of Arts) während des Semesters unter der Leitung von Andrea K. Schlehwein gestellt haben und diese Frage wurde schließlich der rote Faden für das Stück bei dem obligatorischen Showcase am 8. Dezember 2018.

Seit 2012 ist Andrea Gastdozentin (Invited Honorary Professor for Choreography and Dance Creation) an der Nationalen Kunstuniversität in Seoul und als solche dort vielfältig tätig. Sie unterrichtet im Choreografie Department die Studenten des 3rd Grades und der Master Class und choreografiert mit beiden Gruppen jeweils ein Stück für den Showcase. Als Co-Leiterin des Tanzpädagogik Moduls unterrichtet sie ebenfalls die Studenten von Dance Pedagogue und ist zusätzlich als Tutor für Experimental Dance Platform sowie als fachlich-künstlerische Begleitung der Graduation Pieces tätig.

In den letzten drei Wochen des jetzigen Wintersemesters stand die Vorbereitung des Showcases zentral. In dieser Phase habe ich sie als Assistentin im Uni-Alltag begleitet.
Wer ist ich… ? als kurze Info: Ich bin Alina Jacobs, 24 Jahre alt und beende dieses Jahr mein Studium (BA of Dance in Education) bei Codarts, University of the Arts Rotterdam. Bei Codarts ist man das Semester vor dem Studienabschluss frei, um außerhalb der Universität den eigenen Weg als Tanzkünstler zu finden und sein individuelles Profil zu spezifizieren.

So war ich in diesem Jahr erst in Israel, dann in Japan (Tokyo), wo ich mit Studenten der Nippon Sport Science University ein Stück choreografiert habe und schließlich in Süd-Korea (Seoul). Neben meinem Studium habe ich mich durch die Zusammenarbeit mit Lisa Günther und seit 2015 mit Graziela Padilla spezialisiert in dem Lex Padilla Dance Concept (LPDC). Durch das freie Semester konnte ich mich nun hier weiter in vertiefen und war die Auseinandersetzung mit dem LPDC ein verbindendes Element meiner Auslandsaktivitäten.

Nun zurück zu der Zeit in Seoul: Als ich in den letzten Semesterwochen dazu gestoßen bin war Andrea mit beiden Gruppen schon weit fortgeschritten im choreografischen Prozess für den Showcase. So habe ich die letzte Phase dieses Prozesses erleben können, in der alles Gelernte und alles bis dahin Erarbeitete auf eine intelligente und überraschende Weise zusammenkam und letztendlich am 8. Dezember als fertiges Stück präsentiert wurde.

Im Unterricht von Andrea wird das Tanzstudio zu einem Ort an dem andere Regeln als die im Tanz und auch im Leben typischen gelten. Regeln im Sinne von Score und Agreement, die sich im Laufe des Arbeitsprozesses selbst ergeben haben. Regeln, die man ignorieren oder an die man sich halten darf. Regeln, die es ermöglichen, dass der Tanz als Kunstform, das private Leben als Teil dessen und die Rolle des Individuums in der Kunst und Gesellschaft neu definiert werden. Es entsteht ein flexibles und offenes Gebilde geprägt von Respekt, kritischem Denken, neugierigem Hinterfragen und intensiver körperlicher Arbeit, die von verhaltenen Gesten bis zur unkontrollierten Bewegungsexplosion reicht. Schnell wird deutlich, dass die Individualität des Einzelnen eine große Rolle spielt und dass die Studenten nicht nur als Tänzer und Choreografen lernen, sondern auch als individuelle Persönlichkeiten wachsen. So ist es ganz natürlich, dass die Rede ist von dem „casual body“ und dem „dancers body“ und mittlerweile wechseln die Studenten fließend von dem Einem ins Andere.

Bei dem Showcase am 8. Dezember 2018 wurden die Zuschauer bei beiden Gruppen ein Teil dieses Prozesses. Als Zeugen wurden sie von der einen Szene in die Nächste mitgenommen und verfolgten den Weg des Einzelnen innerhalb des Stückes. Man sieht, dass die Studenten gewachsen sind, denn sie stehen mit starkem Rückgrat auf der Bühne und können ihre eigene Verletzlichkeit offen zeigen, was von großer Stärke zeugt. Und da die Studenten im Prozess mit Andrea in der Auseinandersetzung mit sich selbst ihre eigene Emotionalität erfahren haben, die sie lernten wie ein Schauspieler im Moment der Aufführung einzusetzen, konnten sie die Zuschauer berühren. Diese feinen Momente wurden szenisch wie musikalisch wieder gebrochen, durch zum Beispiel den unerwarteten Einsatz von Hiphop-Musik. So wird der Zuschauer in eine völlig andere Gefühlslage katapultiert bevor er erneut von sanfter Pianomusik, Live-Gesang auf Koreanisch oder einem Zitat von John Cage mitgenommen wird. Doch auch die Stille, die immer wieder Teil der Stücke ist, erzielt ihre Wirkung. Sowohl im musikalischen Sinne, im räumlichen Sinne in Form vom „Emty Space“, als auch die Stille im Körper, die Äußerlich scheinbar regungslos ist, die jedoch getragen wird von innerlicher Vibration. Das Finden dieses Gefühls, von Innen aus zu beginnen und von dort das Eigene, auch die eigene Form zu finden „Form follows Function“ war neben vielen anderen Erfahrungen in diesem Semester Teil des Researchs.

Gemeinsam mit Prof. Nam JeongHo und Heekyung leitet Andrea das Tanzpädagogik Modul am Choreographie Department bei K’ARTS. Dadurch erhielt ich die Möglichkeit das Lex Padilla Dance Concept im Rahmen dieses Modules praktisch und theoretisch in einer zweistündigen Lecture vorzustellen. Teilnehmer waren neben Bachelor- und Masterstudenten des Departments auch TanzpädagogInnen, die ihren Abschluss längst gemacht haben und zur Auffrischung und Überprüfung sich in einen von den drei Tutorinnen kritisch begleiteten Prozess hineinbegeben. Es war mir eine große Freude meine Erfahrung und mein Wissen über das Lex Padilla Dance Concept mit den Studenten und Absolventen zu teilen, die mit viel Interesse und Neugierde sowohl im praktischen Unterricht als in der theoretischen Auseinandersetzung dabei waren. Nach meiner Lecture endete der lange Unitag mit der beliebten JAM, die jeden Donnerstag stattfindet.

photo by the pizza man
Die Aktivitäten bei K‘ARTS waren jedoch nicht der einzige Grund meines Aufenthaltes in Seoul. Denn durch die Planung eines gemeinsamen Projekts (Symposion POSITIONEN 019 I Diskurse + Dialoge im Zeitgenössischen Tanz) das im Juli 2019 im ART SPACE stift millstatt in Österreich ausgerichtet wird, arbeitet Graziela Padilla und ich seit einem halben Jahr zusammen mit Andrea und Eleonore Schäfer. Die Zeit hier in Seoul ermöglichte es uns die nächsten Schritte dieser Planung vorzunehmen und ich freue mich, dass wir bald mehr hierüber bekannt geben können!

Zum Ende möchte ich mich für diese besondere Zeit herzlich bedanken bei Andrea und Eleonore, sowie bei den Professoren und Studenten von K’ARTS!
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Internship with AKS @ K'ARTS
Text and photos: Alina Jacobs

"Change no thing, the dance starts here and now" or "Change all things"?! This was the main question the master students of the Choreography Department at K'ARTS (Korea National University of Arts) dealt with during their semester lead by Andrea K. Schlehwein. In the end, this question turned into the central theme of the piece that was presented in the obligatory showcase on 8th of December 2018.

Since 2012, Andrea has been returning to the National University of Arts in Seoul as a Visiting Professor for Choreography and Dance Creation and as such has been active in diverse functions. Within the choreography department she has taught 3rd Grade students as well as the Master Class and with both groups she worked on choreographies for the Showcase. As co-director of the Dance Pedagogy Module she has also been teaching Dance Pedagogy students and moreover has been active as a tutor for the Experimental Dance Platform and as professional-artistic advisor for the Graduation Pieces.

During the last three weeks of the current winter semester, Andrea's main activity was the preparation of the Showcase. It was in this phase that I have accompanied her in my role as assistant within the daily university routine.
So who am I...? In short: my name is Alina Jacobs, I am 24 years old and currently in my final year of studies (BA of Dance in Education) at Codarts, Rotterdam University of the Arts. The final semester at Codarts can be used freely to find one's own way as a dance artist and to specify one's individual profile outside university walls. So first I went to Israel this year, then to Japan (Tokyo), where I choreographed a piece with students from Nippon Sport Science University. Finally I went to South Korea (Seoul). Next to my studies I have specialized in the Lex Padilla Dance Concept (LPDC), collaborating with Lisa Günther and since 2015 with Graziela Padilla as well. Thanks to the free semester, I have been able to dive deeper into these studies and my involvement with LPDC has been the connecting element of my activities abroad.

But back to my time in Seoul: When I joined Andrea during the last weeks of the semester, the choreographic process for the showcase was already well advanced with both groups. Therefore I was able to experience the final phase of this process, where all the things that had been learned and everything that had been worked on came together in an intelligent and surprising way and in the end was presented on 8th of December in form of a finished piece.

In Andrea's classes, the dance studio becomes a place where rules are different from those that are typical for dance or even life itself. Rules in terms of score and agreement that have emerged during the working process itself. Rules that one is free to follow or ignore. Rules that make it possible to redefine dance as an art form, but also private life as an an integral part of art as well as the role of the individual in art and society. The result is a flexible and open structure characterized by respect, critical thinking, curious questioning and intense physical work, ranging from restrained gestures to uncontrolled explosions of movement. It soon becomes clear that everyone's individuality plays an important role in the process and that the students not only gain knowledge as dancers and choreographers, but also as individual personalities. It's quite natural that there is a distinction between the "casual body" and the "dancer's body" and the students by now change fluently between the one and the other.

During the showcase on 8th of December, both groups made the audience part of this process. As witnesses, the public was taken along from one scene to the next, following each individual's path within the piece. It is clearly visible that the students have grown and they now stand on stage with a strong backbone, being able to openly show their own vulnerability – a sign of great strength. And since students have experienced their own emotionality by dealing with themselves during their process with Andrea and have learned to use it like an actor does during the performance, they were able to touch the audience. These sublime moments were broken, both in terms of scenography and music, by, for example, the unexpected use of hip-hop music. This way, the viewer is thrown into a completely different emotional state, just to be taken back again by soft piano music, live Korean singing or a quote by John Cage. But also silence, which is always part of the pieces, has its effect. Musically as well as spatially as "empty space", but also as silence within the body, which seems to be motionless from the outside while being upheld by an internal vibration. Finding this feeling, starting from within and discovering one's own there, also finding one's own form – "form follows function" – has been, along with many other experiences during this semester, part of the research.

Andrea's function as a co-director (next to Prof. Nam Jeong Ho and Heekyung) of the Dance Pedagogy Module within the K'ARTS Choreography Department gave me the opportunity to present the Lex Padilla Dance Concept within the framework of this module in practice and theory during a two-hour lecture. Among the participants were some of the department's bachelor and master students as well as dance teachers who had long since graduated and came to refresh and review within a process that was critically accompanied by the three tutors. It was a great pleasure for me to share my experience and knowledge about the Lex Padilla Dance Concept with the students and graduates who attended with much interest and curiosity both in practical lessons and in theoretical explorations. Following my lecture, the long university day ended with the popular JAM that takes place every Thursday.

photo by AKS
The activities at K'ARTS were not the only reason for my stay in Seoul, however. Graziela Padilla and I had been collaborating with Andrea and Eleonore Schäfer for half a year already, planning a joint project (Symposium POSITIONEN 019 I Discourses + Dialogues in Contemporary Dance) to be held in July 2019 at ART SPACE stift millstatt in Austria. My time in Seoul gave us the opportunity to take planning some steps further and I am happy to say that we will be able to announce more about this project soon!

Last but not least, I would like to thank Andrea and Eleonore as well as the professors and students of K'ARTS for this special time!

Sunday, September 2, 2018

# shivering | Premiere @ ART SPACE stift millstatt | 16 August 2018

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#shivering aus der Serie accumulation von Andrea K. Schlehwein

Zum 10 jährigen Bestehen von NETZWERK AKS | Platform for Contemporary Dance + Art in Millstatt.
von Brigitte Büsken | Fotos: Sang Hoon Ok

Kein großes Getöse, schlicht kommt es daher, das zehnjährige Bestehen des NETZWERK AKS Platform for Contemporary Dance + Art im ART SPACE stift millstatt.
10 is only a number lautet der Titel der drei Programmpunkte umfassenden Jubiläumsveranstaltung: die Herausgabe der Sonderausgabe des international vertriebenen koreanischen Magazins ACCESS mit Photographien des koreanischen Photographen Sang Hoon Ok von Choreographien Schlehweins in Korea, die Eröffnung der Ausstellung Trajectory lines mit eben diesen Photographien und die Premiere des neuesten Tanzabends Schlehweins: #shivering aus der Serie accumulation.

Zur Premiere stimmen ein mit inspirierender Musik Paul Neidhart und Markus Rainer. Klänge von Trompete und Saxophon, live gespielt und elektronisch bearbeitet vibrieren durch die Gemäuer des ehemaligen Benediktinerklosters.

Die Galeristin von FORUM KUNST contemporary, Eleonore Schäfer, mit Schlehwein das Leitungsteam des ART SPACE stift millstatt, eröffnet den Abend mit spannenden Details zu den letzten 10 Jahren NETZWERK AKS, gefolgt von einem, von der in Wien und Kärnten ansässigen Tänzerin und Choreographin Leonie Humitsch geleiteten Künstlergespräch zwischen dem aus Korea angereisten Sang Hoon Ok und Andrea K. Schlehwein.


Im Stiftsaal folgt die Premiere von #shivering, dem neuesten Stück Schlehweins aus der Serie accumulation. Man darf gespannt sein auf die Fotos des während der Premiere lautlos hinter seiner Kamera agierenden Sang Hoon Ok.
Die mit äußerster innerer Intensität agierenden TänzerInnen halten das Publikum über die ganze Dauer der verschachtelt, dicht gewebten Inszenierung in Bann. Binnenkörperliche, minimalistische Zitterungen, die zunehmend den Körper erfassen, bauen sich in einem Geflecht aus scheinbar unzusammenhängenden Fragmenten zu einem viele Assoziationen freigebenden Mosaik zusammen. Eine herrisch, wie ein Vogel der Apokalypse, durch den Raum stolzierende Gasmaskenfigur eröffnet das Szenarium mit schneidendem Stelzenlauf und fragilen Flügeln. Mag sie den Blick auf das immerwährende Drama des Lebens, den Krieg in uns selbst freigeben, das Kämpfen und Revoltieren, das sich Hingeben und nicht weiter Können, das alles Versuchen und Aufgeben – how much can you take with you heißt es an einer Stelle, how long can you run. Instinkthaftes tierisches Aufbegehren, hilfloses Kapitulieren, im Atem verschmolzenes Miteinander.


Der schlichte weiße Bühnenraum wird auf zwei Ebenen bespielt, Abgründe aufdeckend zum Hineinfallen, darüber Springen, Erklimmen, davor zurück Weichen. Die treffsichere Musikwahl der Choreographin lässt die TänzerInnen in ihren Stärken brillieren; Unita Gay Galiluyo in einer aus tiefer innerer Mitte heraus getragenen Präzision und Schnelligkeit, Eiji Takeda in feinem inneren Mitschwingen und instinkthafter Bewegungskraft, Maayan Reiter in verzweifeltem Ringen um Erlösung vom K(r)ampf, Margherita Malinconi in emotionaler Tiefe und Zerbrechlichkeit.

Das schlichte, kreativ mit den gegebenen Möglichkeiten eines Ausstellungsraums agierende Lichtkonzept Schlehweins spielt mit dem sommerlichen Dämmerlicht im Raum, mit den von den TänzerInnen bespielten Neonröhren und kargen, an schwarzen Kabeln von der Decke hängenden Glühbirnen, die dem Bühnenraum durch ihre verbindenden klaren Linien Struktur und Tiefe geben. Das fein verbundene Ensemble setzt die Fragilität und Transparenz der Tanzssprache Schlehweins in subtiler Geschlossenheit und Durchlässigkeit im gemeinsamen Atem um – langanhaltender Applaus an drei ausverkauften Abenden.

Brigitte Büsken, Köln, darstellende Künstlerin, Mitglied NETZWERK AKS seit 2008.



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#shivering from the series accumulation by Andrea K. Schlehwein

10 years NETZWERK AKS  I  Platform for Contemporary Dance + Art in Millstatt.
by Brigitte Büsken | Photos by Sag Hoon Ok

Not with a great noise, in a modest and easy way the 10th anniversairy of NETZWERK AKS I
Platform for Contemporary Dance + Art was celebrated at ART SPACE stift millstatt.
10 is only a number was the title of the anniversairy program, including three items: (1) the presentation of the special edition of the international distributed Korean magazin ACCESS with photos of the Korean photographer Sang Hoon Ok of choreographies of Andrea K. Schlehwein in Korea, (2) the opening of the photo exhibition Trajectory lines presenting theses photographies and (3) the premiere of Schlehwein’s latest work from the series accumulation, #shivering.


For tuning into the right mood inspiring music was performed live and electronically processed by Paul Neidhart and Markus Rainer, trumpet and saxophone. A great sound vibrated through the old stone walls of the former Benedictine Monastry.

The gallerist of FORUM KUNST contemporary, Eleonore Schäfer, with Schlehwein the directory team of ART SPACE stift millstatt, opened the evening with interesting details of the last 10 years NETZWERK AKS, followed by an artist talk moderated by the Carinthian dancer and choreographer Leonie Humitsch between Schlehwein and Sang Hoon Ok, who came all the way from Korea to join this event. 

The Premiere of #shivering, Schlehwein’s latest dance production, followed in the Stiftsaal. (We are intently looking forward to the new photos made silenty behind his camera by Sang Hoon Ok.)
The four dancers acting with extreme inner intenseness are capturing the attention of the audience during the whole duration of this densely woven production. A multifaceted associations giving mosaic is constructed by seemingly not related fragments, mainly initiated by innercorporal minimalistic shiverings. An imperious figure with a gas mask, like a bird of the Apocalypse, opens with a sharp stilt walking and fragile wings the scenery. 

May it offer the view on the perpetual drama of life, the struggles and wars in ourselves, the battling and revolting, the surrendering and growing feeble, the trying everything and giving up - how much can you take with you, one of the dancers asks, how long can you run? Instinctive animalistc rebellions, helpless capitulations, a melting together in breath. 

The clear white stage space is played on two levels, revealing chasms to fall into, to leap above, to climb, to shy away from. Schlehwein’s unerring distinctive choice of music beams light on each of the dancers. Unita Gay Galiluyo in her precision and pace coming from a deep inner centering, Eiji Takeda in his subtle inner resonance and instinctive power, Maayan Reiter in her desperate strive for redemption, Margherita Malinconi in emotional depth and fragility.

The unpretentious light concept of Schlehwein, creativly acting with the given conditions of an exhibition space plays with the twilight in the room, neon tubes switched on and off by the dancers, as well as with light bulbs hanging from the ceiling on black cords giving to the space through their clear lines structure and depth. The fragility and transparence of Schlehwein’s dance language is well transcribed through the subtle connectedness in breath of the fine tuned ensemble – prolonged applause on three sold-out evenings.

Brigitte Büsken, Cologne, performing artist, member NETZWERK AKS since 2008.

Monday, August 6, 2018

PROGRAMM | 10 is only a number

10. August 2018   PREVIEW   ab 19:00 I Tanz 20:00

1
° Tanzphotographie Ausstellung

Trajectory Lines . Photography + Dance

Tanzphotographie von Sang Hoon Ok
Choreographien von Andrea K. Schlehwein / Korea 2012 - 2016
Der Künstler Sang Hoon Ok ist anwesend

2
° Music

auf spielen Paul Neidhart & Markus Rainer

° Eröffnung
Eleonore Schäfer
Galeristin FORUM KUNST contemporary & künstlerische Leitung ART SPACE stift millstatt

3
° Kunstmagazin Korea I Präsentation

ACCESS special edition

Zweisprachige (Englisch / Koreanisch) Sonderausgabe
über die künstlerische Zusammenarbeit von Sang Hoon Ok & Andrea K. Schlehwein

4
° Tanz I Preview
  Andrea K. Schlehwein + NETZWERK AKS
accumulation # shivering


5
° artist talk I Gespräch

Sang Hoon Ok + Andrea K. Schlehwein
Trajectory Lines I verbindende Linien:
Tanz . Kunst . Photographie . Kontinente . Freundschaft . Dialog + Austausch
Moderation: Leonie Humitsch


11. August 2018   VERNISSAGE + Premiere      ab 19:00 I Tanz 20:00

1
° Tanzphotographie Ausstellung

Trajectory Lines . Photography + Dance

Tanzphotographie von Sang Hoon Ok
Choreographien von Andrea K. Schlehwein / Korea 2012 - 2016
Der Künstler Sang Hoon Ok ist anwesend

2
° Begrüßung

Eleonore Schäfer
Galeristin FORUM KUNST contemporary & künstlerische Leitung ART SPACE stift millstatt

3
° Kunstmagazin Korea I Präsentation

ACCESS special edition

Zweisprachige (Englisch / Koreanisch) Sonderausgabe
über die künstlerische Zusammenarbeit von Sang Hoon Ok & Andrea K. Schlehwein

4
° Tanz I Premiere
  Andrea K. Schlehwein + NETZWERK AKS
accumulation # shivering


5
° artist talk I Gespräch

Sang Hoon Ok + Andrea K. Schlehwein
Trajectory Lines I verbindende Linien:
Tanz . Kunst . Photographie . Kontinente . Freundschaft . Dialog + Austausch
Moderation: Leonie Humitsch



12. I 14. I 15. August 2018      ab 19:00 I Tanz 20:00

1
° Tanzphotographie Ausstellung

Trajectory Lines . Photography + Dance

Tanzphotographie von Sang Hoon Ok
Choreographien von Andrea K. Schlehwein / Korea 2012 - 2016
Der Künstler Sang Hoon Ok ist anwesend

2
° Kunstmagazin Korea I Präsentation

ACCESS special edition

Zweisprachige (Englisch / Koreanisch) Sonderausgabe
über die künstlerische Zusammenarbeit von Sang Hoon Ok & Andrea K. Schlehwein

3
° Tanz I Premiere
  Andrea K. Schlehwein + NETZWERK AKS
accumulation # shivering






TICKETS
Vorverkauf auch telefonisch


VVK: € 15,-

AK: € 19,-
erm.: € 9,50 / € 7,50


TEAM
Brigitte Büsken . Unita Gay Galiluyo . Leonie Humitsch . Margherita Mallinconi .
Maayan Reiter . Paul Neidhart . Sang Hoon Ok . Andreja Rauch . Markus Rainer . Eleonore Schäfer . Andrea K. Schlehwein . Eiji Takeda .

eine KOLLABORATION von
büro für tanz I theater I produktionen . eva & eva Verein für zeitgenössische Tanzprojekte
FORUM KUNST kulturinitiative . Galerie FORUM KUNST contemporary
NETZWERK AKS I Platform for Contemporary Dance + Art

SPONSOREN
Bundeskanzleramt Österreich . Land Kärnten . Marktgemeinde Millstatt

KONTAKT
büro für tanz I theater I produktionen
aks.office@andreakschlehwein.com
Fon + 43 4766 35250
Mob + 43 676 782 9753



Thursday, August 2, 2018

Interview with Andrea K. Schlehwein - 10 Years NETZWERK AKS

+++ English translation below +++

(K)ein Grund zu Feiern

Andrea K. Schlehwein | Photo: Sang Hoon Ok
Als ich vor zehn Jahren begann mein internationales Künstlerkollektiv NETZWERK AKS in Millstatt aufzubauen, existierte in ganz Kärnten kein zeitgenössischer Tanz auf professionellem Niveau mehr. 

So die Choreographin, die sich selbst eher als „Stückemacherin“ bezeichnet, weil es griffiger klingt und sich der Grenzen überschreitende Impetus zu anderen Kunstformen [Installation, Film und Photocollagen, Licht + Sounddesign] von selber ergibt. 

Bis heute gibt es keine, dem NETZWERK AKS vergleichbare Tanzkompanie in Kärnten, der es gelungen wäre, sich unter den bekannten und nicht immer ganz leichten Produktions-bedingungen, die mit jedem Windhauch schwanken und wanken, im Land zu etablieren.

Das NETZWERK AKS schaffte es dank einer starken inneren Verbindung dieser Truppe aus Individualisten und Einzelkünstlerinnen in den vergangenen Jahren auf wundersame Weise und unter budgetären Eigenleistungen immer wieder, regelmäßig zusammen zu kommen und Konzepte zu realisieren. Premieren werden konsequent in Kärnten, anfangs in Gmünd, später in der Home Location im ART SPACE stift millstatt gefeiert bevor sie von hier aus in die Welt gehen. 

... So das organisatorisch und personell neben dem Jahresbetrieb überhaupt zu bewerkstelligen ist. Wir betreiben ein eigenes Produktionsbüro und Management, doch das kann längst nicht alle Möglichkeiten umsetzen, da chronisch unterbesetzt, weil unterfinanziert.

Aber dennoch - und eine Besonderheit ist es allemal, dass ausgerechnet mit dem wackligen Standbein ‚zeitgenössischer Tanz’ der ART SPACE stift millstatt mit aufgebaut wurde. Der ist heute ein (wenn nicht der) Ort für zeitgenössische Kunst in Kärnten, an dem unterschiedlichste, dem Zeitgenössischen verpflichtete Künste (vom Tanz über die Bildende Kunst von Skulptur und Objekten zu Multimedia und Installation) an einem Strang ziehen, um gemeinsam ein Jahresprogramm zu gestalten. 
Budgetär unabhängig, inhaltlich zielgerichtet, sich gegenseitig unterstützend.

Der Blick in die Zukunft ist positiv aber sachlich und praxisorientiert:

Solange wir mit Einjahresverträgen und stagnierenden Budgets hantieren, bleibt es schwierig und die Begrenzung ist strukturimmanent und täglich spürbar. 
Planungssicherheit sieht anders aus,-  aber Bedingungen und Situationen können sich schließlich ja auch verändern.

Auf weitere zehn Jahre? 

Als ich mit meinem Team hier begann, hatte ich keinen Zeitbegriff sondern den schlichten Wunsch, Konzepte zu realisieren, die schlussendlich auch die Menschen interessieren, die sie anschauen. Das machen wir so gut es geht in Millstatt ebenso wie in Yogjakarta oder Seoul. Solange es geht – geht es.



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+++ English translation +++
---------------------------------

(No) reason to celebrate

Andrea K. Schlehwein | Photo: Nina HaderTen years ago, when I started establishing my international artists' collective NETZWERK AKS in Millstatt, there was no longer any contemporary dance on a professional level in the entire region of Carinthia.

Says the choreographer, who rather calls herself a "piece maker" because it sounds more succinct and automatically implies the border crossing impetus into other art forms [installation, film and photomontage, light + sound design].

To this day, there is no dance company in Carinthia comparable to NETZWERK AKS that has managed to establish itself in the region under the well-known, not aways easy production conditions that waver and sway with every gust of wind...

NETZWERK AKS, thanks to a strong inner connection of this group of individualists and solo artists, has managed miraculously and under its own budgetary achievements, to come together regularly in order to realize art concepts. Premieres are consistently held in Carinthia, during the early days in the town of Gmünd, later at the home base ART SPACE stift millstatt, before they go out into the world.

... if this can be accomplished at all, in terms of organization and staff, next to the ongoing annual operation. We are running our own management and production office which, however, cannot realize all its potential by far, as it is chronically understaffed because it is underfunded.

Nevertheless, is already quite special that the ART SPACE stift millstatt was established on contemporary dance of all things as one of its rather shaky pillars. Today, it is a (if not the) place of contemporary art in Carinthia, where a great variety of contemporary art forms (from dance to fine arts, from sculpting and objects to multimedia and installation) pull together in order to jointly give shape to an annual program.
Independent in terms of budget, with a clear focus on content, supportive of each other.

The look into the future is positive, but at the same time objective and practical:

As long as we deal with one-year contracts and stagnant budgets, it will continue to be hard. The limitations are structurally inherent and can be felt every day. 
There's no predictability of planning - but after all, conditions and situations can change.

Up for another ten years?


When I started with my team here, I had no concept of time, just the simple desire to realize concepts that ultimately would be interesting for the people who watch them. This is what we are doing, as best we can, in Millstatt as well as in Yogjakarta and Seoul. As long as it's possible – it's possible.

Monday, July 30, 2018

MAGMA - Sharing our path in Pedras Festival, Lisbon.


After a full time of movements in between Portugal and Estonia, participating in Pedras Festival in Lisbon and in Notafe Festival in Vildjandi, being back in Berlin we took time before jumping to Spain for writing a little bit about one of the strong experiences we shared during that time: MAGMA.

Nowadays, joining the up coming 10 years celebration of the NETZWERK AKS, we are happy to share these words as a way of bringing close our presences and the paths of all of us, the members that kept crossing and growing during all that time. Enjoy!


MAGMA opens itself as an invitation by c.e.m (centro em movimento) in the context of Pedras'18 Festival, to work in a laboratory process in sites of Lisbon,  awakening impulses and visions with and from the surrounding, merging them for creating “magmatic” experiences from inner spaces, pouring out through the potential cavities that each of us embodies, running so downwards through slopes and stairs of the city.
It focuses in how to approach spaces, materials and images from a sense of foundation in different qualities and bedrocks of the body, fluid and dense marrows that sustain our sense of physical presence.
We propose to enter in an actual time where catastrophes co-exist with deep sense of creation, an inspiring course for impulses and imaginaries moving us as changing sediments in a constant process of evanescent conglomerations.



Magma after Pedras.

An exercise of recalling.
It has been almost two weeks from when we departed Lisbon. There has been already other undercurrent flows in our mind, bodies, and attentions on all the compounds that the living experience in movement, in constant movement, has to offer. Each time. Each moment.
And Magma is there, or here. Not just a memory of a process that became some sort of performance experience, but a pulse; a soft but vigorous sense of waving, still, rocking and balancing our ground under the feet.
It is a lot about metaphors, we know.
Recalling could be as well a kind of calling back or again. Loud voicing for the amplifying of the past as a part of this present moment; a still growing duration. From an opening in the volcano mouth of the present, we have a chance for contemplating  the liquidity being born inside, emanating and pouring out from there, where we float on also, adrift, surfing on incandescence, trembling without fear.
Metaphor can become a concrete experience. A body experience. A useful device for that. An urban reflective one.
A violent one… sometimes.
Working during all that time for Magma in the stair path of Beco de Sta. Helena, under the touristic viewing spot in Alfama… we witnesses: … the echo of music, songs, amusing ones … the chatting of tourists in their path looking for their destiny, being a little lost and breathless already in the starting of their tour, carrying their luggage up and down through the labyrinths …  each holly day promises to be an opportunity for getting lost… a tour through a holly land, a movement of sudden discoveries.
Tailored travel. Ready-mades. Not too sudden, not too much, safe ones!
… and those persons that also are a part of the landscape, real persons living there behind those walls since ever. Working persons. Aged. Imaginary persons in our mind. Where does this distinction among real and false persons arises from? Plain projection? How not to fall in a judgmental dualism and allow another play of polarities?  to offer a sense of dis/tension? We sat. We watched. We stayed for some hours letting our power and energy be taken, mixed with those flows, soaking our awareness on that. And in general we ended up the day with real tired bodies.
“…we thought about two stairs in the city for you!” said Sofia in our first meeting on the subject. And yes… stairs were the environment where magma was felt right, the physical and symbolic configuration of space for opening a volcano in the city: assent and decline. Going up in your spiritual development or falling in the depth of your own subconscious troubled world. Heaven and hell, and we moving on the uneven ground on top of the earth.
Looking for a stair that would be a proper slope where to flow down, we discover that place in Alfama just under the Mirador of Santa Luzía. It had that day a thin bubble of quietness, amazed because of that under such an agitated surrounding. Every bubble after all just explodes.
There was this young lady tourist guide popping up from the top, telling her made version of this typical city area. She appears with a group of… tourists. She orders to them to sit in the steps. She tells her tale in loud voice involving all those who live behind closed doors and windows… she continued including funny comments that looked for being friendly and spontaneous but somehow uncomfortable. One week later she appeared again. Same tale, different group. A little more rough, louder, same jokes than last week, almost shouting… very fast. Boiling. A contrast to the attitude of those one who were listening. People being carried with doubtfully interest. Among them us: a group of bodies moving in a line from one wall to the other, walking downwards through the stair, extremely slow, in a line of forces, very present but not giving any extra attention to the presence of that normality in the place. After a while we just sat. We passed through. We waited. Did we give up?
We could certainly work there co existing with the rushes of events that those steps yielded to us daily. And that became certainly a practice for enduring and accepting. Magma was a Lab for discovering a type of tuning with those presences, and imagining other potentials forging a kind of poetic landscape of moving figures.
We are grateful to the group of persons who decided to accompany us. They have offered their bodies, different movements and subjectivities, personal histories, differences for the challenge on getting mixed without losing the own pulse and motivation. It was definitively not about one imposed sense of lava burning itself in a homogenic cluster of matter. We understood that with the days. The challenge was to use all those volcanic impulses in the form of words, images, body propositions, interactions, space-crossings in space, in between bodies and body parts for enriching our common interest in the flow, flowing on that specific place, that arrangement of stairs, that part of the city. Proposing certain set path of actions, the practice allowed some forms of eventual inhabiting. Not just in the city with its constant and endless clashes and encounters; also among bodies, each body that is a vibrant compound of matter, cosmos of knots, freeways, channels and expanding openings.
Tectonic plates.
Our bodies. Ordinary bodies. Looking for connecting the magmatic nature of the body. Been its usual perception burned. Dense bodies. Soft ones. A body made of ashes. Still wanting to be a body with its delicate sense of walk. A clumsy walk. Brave and frightened. Moving ourselves forward, pushed, pushed by the incandescent force of cosmic shares, the past still haunting us with its population of beings and phantasmagorias. Bodies open as abysms. Bodies fossilized. Cracking, eroding, disintegrating, scattering, being blown.
A flow of bodies giving themselves to gravity with the ocean as destiny…  the water… the river viewed among the narrow spaces of houses dressing the Alfama hill sides.
“Let those volcanoes fertilize the land around!” preached our friend Jonathan in a whatsapp message, helping us with the ash walk imaginary.
Details emerging from non-wanting, not focusing sliding gaze.
Painted lips in some of those volcanoes mouths.
There was this woman seating in front of us with a friend and a little kid in the ferry towards Cacilhas that Saturday afternoon after our workshop in c.e.m. It made us think in all the effort she needed for fulfilling the picture of herself. The brushed and dyed hair, the outfit, the mirrored sunglasses, the pose, the uneasy sense of acting while talking and having joy from the trip. Underneath that full female body of matter, there was pulse. An organic eruption contained besides sociality. Her lips and nails revealed somehow that on her. In bright and magnificent red.
Jumping up towards a bigger context.
Pedras as an organism breathed around certain concerns.  In what World we would like to live?
Could this volcano we are involved now bring some thoughts impregnated with magma? A World. One with solidity and fluidity are acknowledge as co existent qualities for sustaining the experience of unfolding movements. At least a World with less made-up structures, less anguish while keeping or fighting and more space for invention and for facing the challenge of simply looking among us openly. Sometimes in deep silence, so we can thus perceive the tremors arising as soothing lullabies, songs that awakes us in our dreams. The shared and individual dreams. What World? Which reality? One that we are stubborn to question once and again, among petrified utopias and the promise of the next brand new dance in the market. A World where power and knowledge are not just closed property but vivid exertions of our inherent right for just being born there, here, now. Beyond this separation among idealism and realism, entertaining rhetoric and numb resignation, exiting the nest of the ego and leaving the vacuum of blind ideologies, exists a hint of a possibility in entangling ourselves with true power. Magma, we realize, is an image of that. Embodying a prehistoric source of  impulse of creation / destruction in a universal scale in our lives, something that is still happening unnoticed beyond us, more than us and maybe threatening whatever we consider representing us.
And also that question we feel now more in line with other more concrete in the aesthetic level of the research we were guiding: what kind of a process would we like to embody and how to share it in Pedras as a Festival, taking it as a context for common art practices in the city. That haunted us most of the time. A research, a performance, a piece, an installation event, a production, a documentation, a talk, all or none of this, nothing? What delicate balance of elements would feel adequate for inviting all of us to enter in a common field even though we do not name it?
There was this woman the first day of exploration in the stairs that felt our dance as menacing. She wanted to kick us out in a very bad tempered angry mood. We continue in our slow moving across her doorframe wondering ourselves about the limits for these experiences, practicing establishing a form of communication that without talking and not being un-respectful invited for just moving, differently. “We are only dancing” Said Camila. (Why “only”? we wonder right now). But immediately the lady came out with her bucket and broom and water and soap and washed the pebbled ground infected with awkward substance in front of her house. We saw that she is one of those still alive inhabitants of the original Alfama. She hoped to clean something that unbalanced her feeling for order and ownership: her tiredness maybe after the waves of humans constantly passing, stealing something of her spirit and leaving only a scent of indifference.
We presented (a kind of word to say we were all present there) twice Magma. We were surprised and taken during those two occasions. We felt that we did not expect what it happened first. And then that the work during the previous days merged somehow the synergies among bodies, that part of the city, the subjectivities. There was a power.


“What are you doing?” Asked that old man the same first day of explorations. “We are dancing” (Camila also said that? Or Julia? Memories tend now just to become confused). “Not here! It is dangerous!” he replied puzzled; “…under here, there is a volcano!”
The Volcano in Lisbon…
…that we both suspected that was existing.
So, we have been in a proper place.
We still are.
Thanks.

Carlos & Fernando

MAGMA is a Lab project for site specific proposed by Carlos Osatinsky & Fernando Nicolás Pelliccioli, and accompanied by Júlia Larama, Gonçalo Pires, Laura Vainer, Renata Hardy, Camila Soares & Isadora Dantas; produced for Pedras'18 Festival by c.e.m. (centro em movimento)