OPENING FORWARD DANCE COMPANY
Kunstfest Weimar Wednesday 21 August 2024, 8pm. Festival Opening, live audio description Thursday 22 August 2024, 8pm Friday 23 August 2024, 8pm. duration ca. 45minutes, free entrance
With the site-specific performance OPENING, FORWARD DANCE COMPANY of LOFFT – DAS THEATER, in collaboration with choreographer Mirjam Gurtner will be the first inclusive dance company to open KUNSTFEST WEIMAR.
Guests and artists gather in the central Theatre Square for the grand festival start. To the deconstructed sounds of Carmina Burana, not only Goethe and Schiller on their stone plinths become part of the choreography, but the audience is also invited to move freely around the square and experience different points of view. Between intuition and composition, the diverse Ensemble allows for new and surprising perspectives on this historic site. The dancers' movements are created anew at every moment, they make their decisions in real time and thus become visible in their humanity. This improvised approach, which is also reflected in the composition of the music, requires openness, courage and sensitivity. It can serve as a re-imagination of togetherness in society, while at the same time showing the beauty of transformation in the art of movement.
Who embodies today's Germany? Can familiar places and their embedded narratives be experienced differently and open space for unusual, unexpected communities?
For three performance days, the main square in Weimar, which condenses the stories of democracy and dictatorship, from Goethe and Schiller to Buchenwald, becomes a stage: in Mirjam Gurtner's choreography, six dancers encounter the historical surroundings with a performance that embodies interaction and changeability. With a keen sense of space, they repeatedly recreate dance vocabulary in the midst of the audience, allowing new stories to emerge. The performance is accompanied by the music of Carmina Burana, deconstructed by composer Ashley Alexandra Wright.
The performance on Weimar's Theatre square is one of a series of highly symbolic locations that have been used by the FORWARD DANCE COMPANY: the German Pavilion in Venice, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and the Monument to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig. These places question narratives about Germany and contribute to creating future memories, where past and present meet on the main square. It is a place where memory and experience merge and new dialogues about the German present begin.
Artistic direction: Mirjam Gurtner
Creation/Performance: Mouafak Aldoabl, Elsa Artmann, Renan Alves Manhães, Alfred Quarshie, Lisa Zocher, Yen Lee
Artistic Director FDC / Dramaturgy: Gustavo Fijalkow
Sound arrangement/live performance: Ashley Alexandra Wright (Civic Grace), Original music: Carl Orff
Light/Stage Design: Ulysse Fontaine, Technical Director: Yoav Schutzer
Costume: Julia Bosch
Production Management: Alissa Sebri
Production: Forward Dance Company
Coproduction: Kunstfest Weimar
Photos: ©Candy Welz
Kindly supported by Thüringer Staatskanzlei, TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, von der Stadt Leipzig – Kulturamt, Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Kultur und Tourismus. Diese Maßnahme wird mitfinanziert durch Steuermittel auf der Grundlage des vom Sächsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushaltes.
Access: Barrier-free access to Theaterplatz. Seating available. Free coming and going. On 21.08. live audio description (Beatrix Hermes and Marisa Wendt) will be offered. Registration and information: alissa.sebri@lofft.de
