The dance performance Body of the City is inspired by the idea that everyday life in public space takes place as a spontaneous choreographic composition.
The temporary spaces between the buildings and the streets of the city embody a kind of borderline experience of being in between. They offer seemingly endless ways to walk them.
The bodies of the city constantly communicate their posture and attitude through reference points to the environment. When we walk we are moving through a transitory space, we are in transition, moving in a liminal space to get where we want to go.
To what extent do our movements through this border area create the city itself? The urban space shapes us, our actions, our decisions and our possibilities. But our movements through the space of the city, these everyday choreographies, shape the city, are the city itself, are the true (living/moving) body of the city.
With this project we want to further sharpen our view of the wonders of everyday life and raise questions together with our audience: How do we perceive an aesthetic of the everyday? Or do we miss the beauty of simplicity? How do we orient ourselves in space? What is our relationship with it? Do we feel threatened in some places or where are we safe? How can we perhaps even influence what disturbs or irritates us? Do we walk alone or are we always somehow connected to others?
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How can the performance event "Body of the City" deal with the question of how the everyday publicness of street life can function as a learning experience? How can the figure of the artist as urban explorer help to reveal some of the conditions and strategies that underlie this particular pedagogical framework? The main argument would be that the experience of being in public space is a complex art of empathizing that requires learning to be challenged and even destabilized by otherness without allowing it to become so overwhelming that one loses the ability to come to terms with one's surroundings. As we walk and observe or participate, the city becomes a reflection of our souls, a public stage, a perceptual process, and ultimately a creative process that incorporates our daily lives and dance, and through which we learn the evolving lessons of daily life.
We performatively explore the ways in which the outside world constantly affects us, how we perceive, resist or participate in what is available to us. We propose a framework for dance improvisation that is structurally based on the improvisational relationship between the dancers and the broader context, serving as a platform and metaphor for exploring and describing this process.
Text by Raffaele Rufo/ Catherine Guerin/ Miriam Markl
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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."
Her choreographic works have been shown in Mannheim, Heidelberg, Berlin, Bamberg and Rettigheim. Among other things, she created Autonomy of Pleasure in 2021, which was shown in cooperation with: Amalie - Counseling Center for Women in Prostitution, in the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim .
After her dance studies, which she completed in Nuremberg and Mannheim from 2013-2017, further training and intensive courses in the field of improvisation/composition followed.
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.
Tobias Smith
composition
completed his Master of Arts in Educating Artist in 2018
Popakademie Mannheim majoring in E Bass (Frank Itt) from . He acquired his BA at the State University for Performing Arts Mannheim in the main subjects
Main subject: jazz double bass (Prof. Stabenow), ear training, rhythmic lessons, piano, E bass lessons.
In addition to his involvement in numerous bands, in 2021 he worked as a composer for: the dance performance "Spleen", choreography: Catherine Guerin the play
"The Baubo Reenactment" by Hanna Röhrich and Patricija Bronić (zeitraumexit Mannheim) the play "House with Three Arms" (Theaterhaus G7).
In 2018 he worked on the play Romeo and Juliet
The next generation“, Junges Nationaltheater Mannheim, as a musician.
Catherine Guerin
Outside Eye
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.
team
performance
Amelia Eisen
performance
was born and raised in Nevada City, California. Since May 2017 she has been a freelance dancer, choreographer, teacher and holistic health coach based in Mannheim. Amelia trained with Alonzo King's LINES Ballet in San Francisco, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Northern Israel. she
has worked with choreographers and companies in California and Germany including Michael Bronczkowski, 5elefants tanzkollektiv, Green Flamingo Project, Richard Oberscheven, Taulant Shehu, Luis Sayago, ZiRu Dance Comp any, Kinetech Arts and Project Agora. She has presented her own work in San Francisco, Israel and Germany.
Amelia also teaches contemporary and modern dance and holistic health in various dance schools and dance studios as well as professional training in and around the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region.
Rouven Pabst
performance
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,
Zurich Opera House/ 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 .
Veronika Kornova-Cardizzaro
performance
was born in Prague, Czech Republic and completed her dance training at the Prague Dance Conservatory. A scholarship from the Birgit Keil Dance Foundation took her to the Academy of Dance in Mannheim. She was a solo dancer at the Nationaltheater Mannheim for 17 years and received the Arnold Peterson Prize for outstanding artistic achievements in 2008. Since 2016 she has been a freelance solo dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. Theater Felina-Areal and the Eintanzhaus in Mannheim are your main places of activity with numerous dance creations.
Elizabeth Kaul
performance
completed her studies in contemporary dance in 2009-2012
England at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. After graduating with an MA in Performance Studies from the University of Hamburg, she returns to Heidelberg for a number of projects including Bodies of the City.
As a freelance dancer she works in the last
years for the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg and choreographers such as Catherine Guerin and Eric Trottier.
She has already worked with Miriam Markl on various projects as a dancer or choreographer.
She has also been directing the dance theater green flamingo project since 2016.
Sarah Herr
performance
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
