Autonomy of pleasure
What do sexuality and eroticism mean for us today in the Western world? What influence does society have in shaping individual sexual identity? How and where do we find the mystery of the Other that constitutes eroticism?
The dance performance Autonomy of Pleasure explores questions about the perpetual maintenance of an image of sexuality that denies a radical singularity of the Other, and aims to question familiar habits, thought and perception about sexuality, eroticism and lust to open up new perspectives. Since the sexuality of one person is not identical with that of the other, they can only be experienced together, in fragments that emerge from deep within the body.
team
Miriam Markl
Concept, choreography, costume, props, project management
She has been living and working as a freelance movement artist in Mannheim since 2017 and researches at the interface between art and everyday life.
Her choreographic work mixes performative approaches and dance.
Miriam shows her productions in theatres, in rural areas, in discos and museums in order to reach an audience that otherwise rarely goes to the theatre.
"The drive of my work is: Self-empowerment of myself, my dancers, my cooperation partners and the audience to think and act independently."
In 2018 she initiated the project "No Pain Big Gain" and took part in the mentoring program for young choreographers "Gummitwist".
With the musician Andreas Haslacher she was on tour with the street performance "catch" in Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
Her pieces with the LOBA PROJECT were shown in Mannheim, Berlin, Bamberg and Rettigheim.
As part of Dis-Tanz Solo in 2021, she deepened her artistic research work in the areas of eroticism in dance and created it
full-length piece "We are also are we" on the subject of art and feminism as part of the "Bodies at Resistance" festival.
After her dance studies, which she completed in Nuremberg and Mannheim from 2013-2017, further training and intensives followed in the field of improvisation/composition with Maya Carroll, Mark Thomkins and Judith Sanches Ruiz, among others.
As a dancer she was engaged at the Heidelberg Theater and Orchestra and several times at the Stuttgart State Opera and danced for many freelance choreographers.
Miriam is also a trained seamstress and worked from 2011-2013 as a freelance and permanent assistant as a costume design assistant at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich, among others.
Evelina Winkler
Camera/editing for the film of the piece
She is a freelance filmmaker and photographer from Mannheim.
After studying media and cultural studies in Düsseldorf, she worked in film productions, in video journalism and for Deutsche Welle in Bolivia. She has dedicated herself in particular to documentary film.
In her work, feminist perspectives, everyday resistance, and themes related to the city and migration play an important role. She is currently working as a writer and director on the documentary "SUPERBOHATERKI*Superheldinnen" (80min), which follows acts of resistance and new self-designs of womanhood under a national-conservative government in today's Poland.
She is co-founder of the documentary film initiative Cintetaya, which offers workshops in an intercultural context. She sees documentary film on the one hand as a means of artistic expression and on the other hand as a means of making contact, creating exchange and challenging familiar perspectives.
Angela Wendt
Dramaturgy, assistant to the production manager
dr Angela Wendt studied German, media and communication sciences and French and did her doctorate in German (modern German literature) at the University of Mannheim. She has been a lecturer there since 2000 and offers seminars with a focus on theater and theater practice. At the Mannheim National Theater she worked on the International Schiller Days and the Mozart Summer, among other things, and was responsible for the cooperation between the university and the National Theater.
She has been a freelance dramaturge in drama since 2015 and in dance since 2018. At the Felina-Areal Theater she works in drama with the New Ensemble and Rainer Escher, most recently on Wilhelm Reich's "Speech to the Little Man" (2019), Alain Badiou's "Ahmed the Philosopher" (2019) and Anni Ernaux's "Life. Writing" (2020), Ferdinando Camons "The horror of the therapists. The disease man" (premier 2021).
In dance, she works with various choreographers, including Stefano Giannetti: "The Power of Art" (2019), Amelia Eisen and Kirill Berezovski: "Project Warrior" (2019). She has been dancing herself (again) since 2002 and teaches as a trained ADTV dance teacher assistant at the Knöller dance school in Ludwigshafen.
Together with Jan Roelof Wolthuis she has been organizing various song projects since 2019, most recently on Brahms and Hölderlin.
In 2019 she became self-employed with the Kulturbüro Chamäleon: www.kultur-wendt.de
Catherine Guerin
Development of the texts for the piece, artistic mentoring
Born in New York, she came to Europe in 1988 after a varied dance and theater education. There she first danced in various German dance companies and finally came to Liz King in Heidelberg in 1991. Since then she has worked as a freelance choreographer, Feldenkrais practitioner, movement educator and performer. In her work she is dedicated to researching various aspects of the interplay of dance, language, literature and the performing arts. She is also the founder of the performance and research project "Choreography Today" at the Theaterwerkstatt Heidelberg. As part of this project, she created performances with both professional dancers and amateurs. Since 2015 she has been a lecturer for dance and movement at the Theater Akademie Mannheim.
dancers
Cecilia Ponteprimo
from Turin (IT) has been living as a freelance dancer, choreographer and dance teacher in Heidelberg since 2018.
In 2017 she successfully completed her dance studies at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, where she danced in pieces by Igor & Moreno, Loic Perela, Liat Waysbort & Grainne Delaney, Cecilia Moisio, Nadia Bekker, among others.
She was a member of the Dutch company "DE STILTE" (2016-2018) and then worked as a freelance dancer with various choreographers based in Germany, including Maura Morales, Paolo Fossa, Minka Marie Heiss and Martina la Bonté, Fabian Cohn and Domenico Strazzeri and Amelia Eisen, Jonas Frey, Miriam Markl, and Julie Pécard.
Rouven Pabst
completed his bachelor's degree in contemporary and classical dance at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts in 2015. There he worked with William Forsythe, Regina van Berkel and Marguerite Donlon, among others.
As a freelance dancer he appeared in various music theater and dance productions, including at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Oper Frankfurt, Opernhaus Zürich/ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Paris, Salzburg Festival and with the independent company co>labs.
Rouven is currently based in Frankfurt and teaches contemporary and show dance there. Since 2020 he has been a senior lecturer in the dance teacher academy of the General German Dance Teacher Association e. V. (ADTV) for contemporary .
Lorenzo Ponteprimo
originally from Italy, lives as a freelance dancer, choreographer and dance teacher in Heidelberg. He studied art at the High School of Torino and Parma in the Department of Architecture and Design.
His dance background consists of hip hop, musical theater and many other dance styles. Eventually he specialized in contemporary dance and graduated from Codarts, Rotterdam Dance Academy in 2015.
As a dancer he has worked with Conny Janssen, Regina van Berkel, Nanine Linning, Edan Gorlicki, Domenico Strazzeri, Agnieszka Jachym, Ricardo Fernando, Paolo Fossa, Eric Trottier, and Eva Borrmann.
As a teacher, he develops his own method focused on unleashing creative behavior. By combining all the movement techniques he has learned with breathwork and high mental awareness.
Sarah Herr
is a dancer, choreographer, dance/circus teacher and cultural mediator (MA) with a focus on diversity and migration.
She completed her dance training at the School for Dance, Improvisation and Performance (TIP) in Freiburg and in the Netherlands.
Since 2010 she has been dancing in various ensembles and dance companies in the Netherlands, Israel and Germany (including Tanztheater Gabriela Lang, Tanztribüne Karlsruhe, Dansimprovisatie Iris
van Peppen, Guerrilla Dance Haifa, Ensemble Patricia Wolf & Dancers, Sasha Waltz & Guests/ZKM, Compagnie Didier Théron).
Her own work is characterized by interest and experience in the areas of instant composition, contact improvisation, acrobatics/partnering and release floor work, as well as the Laban-Bartenieff approach.
Together with Meret Rufener she founded the 5elefants in 2016
tanzkollektiv, which has been working at the intersection of dance, performance and movement theater ever since, both as a duet and in collaboration with other artists.
She completed her training as a circus pedagogue at the ZAK (Cologne) and has been working as a circus pedagogue for over 10 years, teaching aerial acrobatics, partner acrobatics, juggling and movement theatre. As a freelance cultural mediator / cultural manager, she gives and organizes seminars and events on diversity-conscious education and works as a production manager and cultural manager for dance ensembles and freelance dance professionals. She has lived in Mannheim since 2019 and is the mother of a three-year-old son.
www.sarah-herr.de /// www.5elefants.com
cooperation partner
Amalie advice center for women in prostitution
The Amalie counseling center has been in existence since July 2013. It is sponsored by the Diakonisches Werk Mannheim.
The basis for founding the counseling center was a scientific master's thesis from 2010 and an action plan based on it from the SRH University Heidelberg, Department of Social Work.
At the beginning of 2012, a project manager was hired from the Diakonisches Werk's own funds with the aim of setting up the counseling center and securing the financing. At the same time, the “Round Table Prostitution” was founded.
The Amalie counseling center is aimed at all women from Mannheim and the Rhine-Neckar region who work in prostitution.
With the dropout program, Amalie helps to create perspectives for a new life and to leave the "milieu".
Funded by:
Thanks
Special thanks to Julia Wege from Amalie, Sascha Koal from Theater Felina-Areal, Wolfgang Detering for photos, Janna Schimka and Jasmin Unbemach from Tanzstudio Matrakala, Elisabeth Kaul and Vivian Schöchlin and to all the numerous other supporters.