The centre for choreographic development Se.s.ta within its residency program in the castle Žďár nad Sázavou established last year a cooperation with a new partner institution - centre for contemporary art and residency house Meetfactory in Prague. Both institutions are hosting artists, choreographers, thinkers, performers, musicians, writers and people with interest to explore their research in the city of Prague and in the bucolic industrial environment of baroque castle in Žďár nad Sázavou in Czech republic in the frame of newly established residency program Choreographic studio. During November 2018 Swedish choreographer based in Germany Else Tunemyr was the first resident who took part in both residencies.
The initial idea of how to think the residency was to create a space for invitation, to take part in the process of making of a dance movie with hosts and guests, to read together Satanic feminism by Per Faxneld, to be in sync in kaleidoscopic glimpse of time.
Demanding the void is a dance film which was created during the residency in the castle in Žďár nad Sázavou as a collaboration of invited artists and presented later during the open studios in Meetfactory in Prague. Demanding the void is a symmetrically synchronized slowed down choreography perceived by three cameras - three gazes which are intimately guiding us through elastic time. Demanding the void is the reference to the performance Demanding the invisible of artist Katarina Morháčová – Kata Mach, who unexpectedly died this winter. Demanding the void is a honor to her work which was always acting honestly against patriarchal supremacy and which emphasises feminist understanding of community, horizontality, agency, commitment and act as an invisible revolt shouted out loud.
Z.Z.
DEMANDING THE VOID
During my residency I was working together with Zuzana Žabková with the aim of making a dance film. We started by getting to know the space by quite simply walking around the castle and its surroundings to find places and architecture that interested us in an intuitive, energetic, aesthetic or historical way.
After some days making ourselves at home in the castle we created a score to reflect and correspond to a specific painting in the ceiling. We had a wish to let the movement reflect the architecture and as such becoming part of the space. Choreographically the material were dealing with slow, mostly close to the floor material, choreographed around words such as hesitate, pause, fluctuate, delay, doubt, dwell, linger, stutter, stumble, fumble, hang: states which are not considered productive, secure and strong but rather withdrawn, depressed, unsure. These kind of states contrast the grandiose building and puts emphasis on the weariness of the body.
At the end of the week we invited three residents from the Meetfactory Prague: Kata Mach, Arthur Poutignat and Andrej Žabkay. Without showing them the material beforehand we asked them to film it in ways that they found compelling. They all used different phones and cameras so the material has a kind of DIY feel to it which again contrast the space. The bodies of the three filming becomes part of the choreography as they are walking in and out of the shot which brings a question about labour and work into the otherwise slick surrounding.
E.T.
SCORE
1. INSTANT COPYING. With some divine features. Becoming the same body. Feeling the sensation of the other person’s body through moving. Blurring the limits of body sensation, self or other.
2. AKTERLAND SLOW-MOTION. Ready-made. Allowing for the spectator to really see the details of the work of Anna Theresa de Keersmaeker.
3. WEARY. Explore somatic practices to see if, when following the body and its functions as an initiative to move, from e.g. the skin, the heartbeat or organs, these movements can appear so organic that they come across as non-human
3. LUPE. Ready-made, tempo change. Working with platform of a square. It rotates. Diagonals different directions of circles. Grotesque and trashy, outsider. Curved. Whore and cleaning lady.
4. Indecisive dance. Movement that never becomes full. Almost reaches but does not produce. Hesitations, dwelling, falter, paus, delay.
