DIVERSITY

DIVERSITY

Guest performance series »DIVERSITY

Curated by Silke Z.

In the guest performance series DIVERSITY, Silke Z. and die metabolisten invite national and international dance productions to ehrenfeldstudios that artistically negotiate the themes of INCLUSION & PARTICIPATION // GENDER & SEXUALITY // RACISM & PRIVILEGE // AGE & VISIBILITY. The topics of the DIVERSITY discourse are explicitly linked in the repertoire here and their visibility is to be made effective in the long term.

Each of the invited guest performances will be accompanied by a duo dance piece by Silke Z. with dancers from the ensemble die metabolisten, thus providing a transgenerative perspective.

#1 HUMAN GEOGRAPHY | CiM – dance Company

The first guest performance of the series DIVERSITY on Inclusion & Participation:

An inclusive dance piece for everyone ages 8 and up in cooperation with programme series QUERFELDEIN.

Human Geography investigates the relationship between people and their environment in different places. In the choreography HUMAN GEOGRAPHY by Ana Rita Barata, the performers enter a space together – their bodies become points of reference for each other as well as for the things and movements in this space. They create a living, constantly changing map of different surfaces, landscapes and territories. How do the bodies and things relate to each other in space? How do they change common territories? HUMAN GEOGRAPHY is the surveying of a space with different bodies that inscribe their traces in the memory of this place.

CiM – dance Company promotes a pioneering approach to artistic creation in the spirit of inclusion through dance and image. The company develops regular training and awareness that focuses on the movement specificities and unique expressiveness of each dancer/performer and promotes a vision of the idea of capacity and boundaries through choreography that reveals diversity as a driving force.

WITH US. Episode 1: Karel (65) meets David (25)
Silke Z. & die metabolisten

Before the performances, Silke Z. & die metabolisten develop an intergenerational dance perspective on the guest performance HUMAN GEOGRAPHY: In Episode 1, Karel (65) and David (25) meet.

Following the performances on June 9, 10 and 11, there will be a workshop with the artists of CiM – Companhia de Dança.

Workshop DANCE FOR ALL

9 & 10 June 2022: Workshop CiM “Dance for All”: for students after the performance
11 June 2022 | 12 am – 2 pm: free Workshop CiM “Dance for All” (all levels, mixed-abled)


Choreography Ana Rita Barata

Artistic advisor  Pedro Sena Nunes
Dancers Bruno Rodrigues, Joana Gomes, Nelson Moniz
Costumes Mafalda Estácio
Sound + light design Pedro Sena Nunes
Production Inês Baptista

The guest performance HUMAN GEOGRAPHY of the series DIVERSITY cooperates with the programme series QUERFELDEIN, which is financed, among others, by the funding for top-level productions (Spitzenförderung) of tanzfuchs PRODUKTION.

#2 SHAME MY NAME | Konnective

The second guest performance of the series DIVERSITY on Gender & Sexuality:

The intermedial performance SHAME MY NAME deals with the affair between Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, the nipplegate around Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake and the rape allegations of GNTM contestant Gina-Lisa Lohfink.
Konnective examines the digital shaming of the three women and asks: How were their stories stored in the collective memory and what strategies did the women use to survive the shaming?

What continuities can be found with the history of female humiliation?

Performers:
Saliha Shagasi, Judith Niggehoff, Sophie Halcour

The guest performance SHAME MY NAME of the series DIVERSITY is supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the framework of NEUSTART KULTUR.

Please note !

The performance deals with the theme of sexualised violence.
At one point there are stroboscopic light effects.

WITH US. Episode 2: Karel (65) meets Annika (19)

Silke Z. & die metabolisten

Before the performances, Silke Z. & die metabolisten present an intergenerational dance perspective on the guest performance SHAME MY NAME: In episode 2, Karel (65) and Annika (19) meet.

#3 FÜHL DIE WELT DURCH MEINE HAUT | Khadidiatou Bangoura

The third guest performance of the series DIVERSITY on Racism & Privilege

The starting point of the piece is a thought experiment: Black people and PoCs, as the dominant social group, do not experience everyday racism, while white people, who do not belong to the dominant social group, experience everyday racism. Connections between everyday racism and structural racism are explored. Through dance & text, an emotional, complementary and low-threshold approach to the academic and theoretical discourse on racism is pursued in order to promote processes of sensibilisation, self-reflection and self-education to actively combat racism.

Khadidiatou Bangoura is a dancer & choreographer with West African roots. Her artistic works include “The heart is a muscle” (2016), “Adult-ish” (2017), “Moving Structures” (2020) and “FÜHL DIE WELT DURCH MEINE HAUT – Observations on everyday racism (2021)”. Through dance, she aims to enable the analysis of our relationships to each other, to ourselves and to our environment, creating new narratives that provoke reflection.

There will be an audience discussion after both performances.

Concept + Choreography: Khadidiatou Bangoura
Dance + Choreography: Khadidiatou Bangoura, Janaina Celina Domingos, Bawelima Dessa Ganda, Mareile Gnep, Joana Kern, Maria Eugenia Lapadula Plà, Emiko Tamura
Assistance: Waithera Schreyeck
Costume design: Douakro Kante
Photography + Stage design: Lorena Spülbeck
Music + Sound editing: Tatiana Heuman

Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR.

WITH US. Episode 3: Karel (65) meets Hanna (27)

Silke Z. & die metabolisten

Before the performances Silke Z. & die metabolisten present an intergenerational dance perspective on the guest performance FÜHL DIE WELT DURCH MEINE HAUT: In episode 3 Karel (65) and Hanna (27) meet.

#4 TRIPLE-BILL | Lisa Thomas, Angus Balbernie, Silke Z.

The fourth guest performance of the series DIVERSITY on the theme of Visibility & change of one’s own body

DIVERSITY focuses here on the aesthetic potential of the ageing female and male body, around the visibility and changing of one’s own body. The program includes three short pieces about men and women over 60:

ANGUS BALBERNIE – I LIKE CRIME SHOWS, MOUNTAINS AND MAYBE 3 PEOPLE

Angus Balbernie from the UK will improvise his show “I like crime shows, mountains and maybe 3 people” on both evenings.

Angus McLean Balbernie directs, choreographs, improvises, teaches and mentors. After around 85 performances, he says today:

“I don’t really enjoy the noise and hype of a lot of performances anymore. I enjoy smaller things in unusual spaces and studios, and work made by the unnoticed, the improvisers, the different and the broken. I enjoy people finding ways to move and compose and share themselves in space simply because they still have too…. That’s probably enough no?”  

When he’s not performing or teaching, he now lives on a hill in Haute Provence, hikes in the mountains and plays the banjo with his left hand – quite badly.

Improvisation + dance: Angus McLean Balbernie Lighting: Beppo Leichenich

More info at: www.angusbalbernie.weebly.com

***

LISA THOMAS – DANCEYOURSKIN

Lisa Thomas from Stuttgart will also be showing excerpts from her performance “DanceYourSkin”:

Do women have to be young (and naked) to get a place on stage? In her dance performance, 63-year-old dancer and choreographer Lisa Thomas explores the very special artistic and dancing potential of her dancer’s body, which has changed with age. Using dance, photographs and live projections, she introduces us to the world and language of movement of the older body.

“The ageing human body has been at the centre of my work as a dancer, performer and choreographer for over 15 years. […] There are few old professional dancers present and as a consequence we have few collective images of older bodies dancing. I am interested in discovering the potential and beauty of my own 63 year old muscles and skin, e.g. their ability to vibrate, which a young hard body can never do.” (Lisa Thomas, 2023)

Concept/choreography/dance/performance: Lisa Thomas  Additional choreography: Smadar Goshen Photography: Simone Demandt Dramaturgy + video: Sabrina Schray  Text: Sabine Altenburger Stage: Justyna Koeke Costume: Justyna Koeke, Gesine Mahr Production and curation: Birgit Gebhard

More about the project: www.danceyourskin.de

Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the NEUSTART KULTUR programme, [DIS-TANZEN/ tanz:digital/ DIS-TANZ-START support programme] of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.

***

Silke Z. and the metabolisten will present the premiere of WITH US. EPISODE 4: KAREL (65) MEETS BETTINA (68) as a prelude to both solo works.

In WITH US. EPISODE 4 by choreographer Silke Z., dancers Karel Vaněk and Bettina Muckenhaupt meet. They embark on an impulsive process of rapprochement in which they explore different versions of themselves and make themselves available to each other with skin and hair. Sometimes explosive, sometimes pleasurable, they peel themselves from one skin into the next and play passionately with their relationship to independence.

Bettina Muckenhaupt and Karel Vaněk have been realising dance performances together with choreographer Silke Z. for many years and are both part of Silke Z.’s intergenerational ensemble “die metabolisten”.

Choreography: Silke Z. in collaboration with Dance: Karel Vaněk, Bettina Muckenhaupt Light: Beppo Leichenich Management: Hanna Held

Supported by the Diversity Fund of the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

www.resistdance.de/en/with-us-episode-4

TEAM + FUNDING

Artistic direction: Silke Z.
Management: Caroline Simon, Hanna Held
Administration: Carina Graf
Organisation: Anna Boldt
Press work + public relations: Kerstin Roseman

Supported by the Diversity Fund of the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

PERFORMANCE TRAILERS:

THE DIVERSE BODY

THE DIVERSE BODY

the diverse body

Dance research labs for people 60+

As part of the multi-year artistic project THE EMPATHIC BODY by choreographer Silke Z. and the transgenerative ensemble die metabolisten, four dance labs for the generation Ü60 will be offered in 2022 under the title THE DIVERSE BODY.

Embedded in a dance series focusing on diversity in society, to which international dance performances are invited, Silke Z. and ensemble members of the metabolists offer a dance laboratory for all people over 60.

Everything revolves around the themes of empathy, language and the body!
The dance labs are dedicated to physical and artistic research at eye level and open up a protected space in which the positions of the generation 60+ can become visible. The work is dance-based and language-based.

Each lab includes an impulse lecture on the thematic focus of the lab, its own final presentation and the opportunity to see dance performances together at the ehrenfeldstudios.

LAB DATES IN 2022

LAB 1 I Mon. 13 – Sat. 18 June 2022
With an impulse lecture by Robin Peters. Topic: Inclusion

Introductory performance by CiM – Dance Company (Portugal)
Follow-up performance by Dance on 60+ (Munich)

LAB 2 I Mon. 19 – Sat. 23 September 2022
With a impulse lecture by Konnective. Topic: gender

Introductory performance by Konnective (Cologne)
Follow-up performance by FELD Theater (Berlin)

LAB 3 I Mon. 17 – Sat. 22 October 2022
With an impulse lecture by Daniel Brunsch and Helena Kukla. Topics: racism, privileges
Follow-up performance by company Zartbitter (Ludwigsburg)

LAB 4 I Mon. 28 November  – Sat. 3 December 2022
With an impulse lecture by Miriam Haller. Topics: age(ing) and everyday life
Afterwards: symposium on dance art & age for experts

FUNDING

The project is funded by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne, the Förderfonds Kultur und Alter of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia with the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (stage and research), Fonds Darstellende Künste (stage) and the Rheinenergie Stiftung Kultur (mediation). In cooperation with the theatre and media class of the Albertus Magnus Gymnasium, Cologne, Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum and Fokus Tanz, Munich.

The laboratory series THE DIVERSE BODY is funded by the Förderfonds Kultur und Alter of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

 

NEW LAB:

THE AGEING BODY (55+)

25.09.23 – 29.11.23

ehrenfeldstudios, Köln

DETAILS

No prior experience is required to participate.
OCTOBER 2021 COMFORT ZONE – live sounddesign solo version

OCTOBER 2021 COMFORT ZONE – live sounddesign solo version

COMFORT ZONE – live sounddesign solo version
Dance performance by Silke Z. With Dennis Alexander Schmitz (Dance) and André Zimmermann (Sound design)


 

Most decisions are made subconsciously. The brain pre-sorts, because otherwise we would already be completely overwhelmed with everyday sensory perceptions. But what happens when we make the very conscious decision to break out of the comfort of our habits? When we dare to forget our vanity for a moment to devote ourselves to pure physicality?

Performer Dennis Alexander Schmitz makes this attempt and invites us on a journey into worlds of movement that challenge our imagination. Dennis Alexander Schmitz and Sound designer André Zimmermann confront the audience with an intense and emotional alliance between body, sound, devotion and ectasis. André Zimmermann’s live sound takes the energetic piece through various zones, from cool detachment to total exhaustion to peak performance and into unknown zones beyond.

The need for well-being is suspended for the duration of the piece and only direct movement is still possible. Through the unbroken presence and participation in the hall, the audience is automatically lured out of their own comfort zone and addressed with all their senses.

Silke Z. | concept & artistic direction in collaboration with:

Dennis Alexander Schmitz | dance

André Zimmermann | sound design

Garlef Keßler | lightning design

Dennis Alexander Schmitz | costume

Hanna Held, Carina Graf | administration

Vinya Cameron | public relations

Kerstin Rosemann | public relations

©Meyer Originals | picture

Dennis Alexander Schmitz | is a contemporary dancer from Cologne. He studied at Tanzfabrik Berlin, MUK Vienna and DOCH Stockholm. The main interest of his dance work and teaching is the focus of ethical interaction. Exposing and questioning power structures and discovering and using each one’s own inner impulse to transform them into movement is another concern of his position as an artist. As a performer Dennis has worked with various choreographers throughout Europe, including Jolika Sudermann, Britta Pudelko, Annelie Andre (Berlin), Nikolaus Selimov, Samuel Bartussek(Vienna), Karolien Verlinden (Antwerp), T Ertl (Stockholm) and Silke Z. (Cologne)

André Zimmermann | made his debut at the age of 16 as a composer for dance and theatre. After graduating from high school, he learned at the Cologne audio post-production company TorusGmbH. As a sound supervisor, he has realised more than 30 feature films, 200 TV productions, numerous games and various audio installations and has received various nominations and awards for these (including the Golden Reel Award / Los Angeles). Postgraduate he studied film directing at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and since 2006 he realised various projects as conceptual designer, author, director and dramaturge for film, theatre and multimedia projects. During his studies, he founded the Z2 Studios for audio postproduction in Cologne Ehrenfeld and in 2012 the software company Counterpulse-Audio for innovative tools in the audio field. In 2015 the label “Counterpulse Audio Mix&Edit” was founded in new premises. He founded the label Deeper Drama in 2016. Most recently, he won the German Film and Television award Lola for the sound design of the film Styx.

Garlef Keßler | studied Applied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim and subsequently worked as a technical assistant at the Huis aan de Amstel Theatre (Amsterdam), Dansgroep Krisztina de Châtel (Amsterdam) and Sasha Waltz & Guests (Berlin). Since 2011 he has been the technical director of TPZAK (Circus and Theatre School Cologne). In November 2016 he completed his apprenticeship as a master craftsman for event technology. As a freelance lightning designer, he works for various dance and theatre companies, including El Cuco Project, flies & tales, Overhead Project, cie., nomoreless (Gitta Roser), Silke Z. resistdance, IPtanz and the Un-Label Projekt. For the past three years he has been the technical director of the SoloDuo Festival NRW + friends.

Silke Z | lives with her family in Cologne. After completing her diplomatic sports studies (DSHS) with a focus on dance and skiing, she studied dance at the European Dance Development Centre (EDDC) in Arnhem, NL and the Moving On Centre-School for Participatory Arts and Research (MOC) in San Francisco, USA. She is the artistic director of the company Silke Z. resistdance and the intergenerational ensemble DIE METABOLISTEN and produces dance and performance works in Germany and abroad. She has received several awards for her work. In 2015 she founded the ehrenfeldstudios, an artist-led dance production space with an interdisciplinary and inclusive alignment in Cologne. In the same year, Silke Z. began her artistic and practical research on the topic of “Performing Immediacy” as part of her PhD at Falmouth University (UK). In the winter semester 2018/19 she taught at the Ruhr University Bochum where she worked out her methods with the students of the Scenic Research course. COMFORT ZONE is the first stage production resulting from her research on the topic of presence.

DATES

COMFORT ZONE
at PALMA DANSA Festival 2022

7.5. I 9 pm
Teatre del Mar, Palma de Mallorca

 


Photography © Meyer Originals

LOVE IS … PRIME! The empathic body vol. 3

LOVE IS … PRIME! The empathic body vol. 3

LOVE IS … PRIME! | the empathic body vol. 2

DATES

PREMIERE: 23 September 2021 | 8 pm ehrenfeldstudios, Cologne

4 December 2021 | 6 pm
5 December 2021 | 4 pm

Love is… affection, compliments, devotion, abandonment, basic trust, happiness,

protective and complicated.

In their new production, Silke Z. and the intergenerational ensemble die metabolisten devote themselves to the many facets of love.

It is about the moment of revelation, self-love, longing and lust, rapture and the power of love, but also about hate speech, saying no out loud or dissolving oneself in love.

The dancers have produced solo videos on one aspect of love, which serve as the basis for the production and the love parcours through the ehrenfeldstudios.

In video projections, sound installations and dance performances, the rooms of the ehrenfeldstudios will become a parcours of love in which the audience can move freely.

Join us in exploring the many facets of love and try to endure and defend this great feeling with us!

Cast:

Artistic direction and choreography: Silke Z.
Performance: Daniela Riebesam, Vivien Kovarbasic, Caroline Simon, Dennis Schmitz, Jimin Seo, David Winking, Hanna Held, Annika Bode, Meike Kattwinkel
Intergenerative dramaturgy: André Zimmermann, Bettina Muckenhaupt, Lilith Giles
Production Management: Annina Pomaska
Sound Design: André Zimmermann
Lighting Design: Wolfgang Pütz
Costume and stage: Claudia Grünig, Annina Pomaska
Dance mediation: Silke Z., Caroline Simon, Dennis Schmitz, Hanna Held
Management: Hanna Held
Administration: Carina Graf
Organization: Anna Boldt
Public Relations: Vinya Cameron
Press: Kerstin Rosemann
Photo Documentation: Claudia Grünig, Annina Pomaska
Video documentation: Barbara Schröer

The overall concept is supported by the following partners:

Co-production: Fokus Tanz e.V. Munich

Cooperation: Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum, Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium Cologne, ehrenfeldstudios e.V.

Thanks to the students of TMK classes of Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium Cologne for their input to the production!

Funded by the state of NRW within the framework of the 3-year conceptual funding and the city of Cologne within the framework of the multi-year project funding.

THE DISTANT BODY

THE DISTANT BODY

THE DISTANT BODY

Dance research labs with people 60+

As part of the multi-year artistic stage, outreach and research project THE EMPATHIC BODY by choreographer Silke Z. and her ensemble die metabolisten, four dance labs for the generation 60+ will be offered in 2021 under the title THE DISTANT BODY.

The effects of the Corona pandemic, especially the distance regulations have changed the (performance) world. The use of Zoom etc. to “work further” in art assigns a new meaning to the body and the question of distance. Especially for the older generation, the awareness of distance has changed. What does distance mean today? Distance from one’s own body? What effects does distance have on movement? How do these developments affect relationships? What does social distancing mean in life, in old age and in a stage context?

In the laboratory situations, the participants research these questions in solos, duos and groups together with the choreographer and selected ensemble members for a week and bring the results to the stage of the ehrenfeldstudios in a final performance.

***In addition to the lab weeks, rehearsal and performance visits are planned as part of the ensemble’s artistic productions***

FUNDING

The project is funded by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne, the Förderfonds Kultur und Alter of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia with the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (stage and research), Fonds Darstellende Künste (stage) and the Rheinenergie Stiftung Kultur (mediation). In cooperation with the theatre and media class of the Albertus Magnus Gymnasium, Cologne, Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum and Fokus Tanz, Munich.

The laboratory series THE DISTANT BODY is funded by the Förderfonds Kultur und Alter des Landes NRW.

NEW LAB:
THE AGEING BODY (55+)

25.09.23 – 29.11.23

ehrenfeldstudios, Cologne

DETAILS

Participation is free of charge. No previous experience is required for participation.
NOV 2020 | WE | The Empathic Body Vol. 1

NOV 2020 | WE | The Empathic Body Vol. 1

The Empathic Body Vol. 1
WE | 2021

Theaterrevier (Zeche Eins),
Prinz-Regent-Straße 50-60, 44795 Bochum
November 2021

Sa.,  06  | 7:30 pm
So.,  07  |    6 pm
Mo., 08 |  10 am

ehrenfeldstudios, Köln
November  2021

11th | 10 am – performance for schools
12th |  10 am – performance for schools
13th |  4 pm – performance for families
14th |  4 pm – performance for families

 

We are emotional.
We are resilient.
We are dependent.
We are loving.
We are uncertain.
We are envious, assaulting, grateful.
We are strange – tender – ignorant – freaky.
We are diverse.

Man as a social being has the ability to empathize with others, to put himself in their place, to take the place of the other. Can we not do otherwise? “We” transfers the natural forms of emotional contagion into dance-choreographic settings. The performers take a tightrope walk between attraction and aversion, affection and assault.
Silke Z.’ Ensemble DIE METABOLISTEN negotiates in “we” about empathy and faces the invasive, encroaching side of empathy. This first production of the project “DER EMPATHISCHE KÖRPER” lays the foundation for a perennial examination of the topic “empathy”. The intergenerational company is looking for new performative perspectives to approach the complex of themes and cultivate “we” feelings.


Press:

“The encounter with artists changes because it confronts the students with different ways of working. At the core of every work of art the question arises as to the method with which it was created. This opens up new horizons for pupils in a world that threatens to perish due to its “neglect of prosperity”. ”(Thomas Linden, Choices)

Magazin O-Tone Köln: https://www.resistdance.de/wp-content/uploads/O-Ton_Koeln_Wir_Zerban_20.11.20.pdf

 

Further dates – Live:

Sun, May 9 I 7pm
Mon/Tue, May 10/11 I 10am (school performance)

Location:

Kammerspiele (Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum)
Königsallee 15
44789 Bochum


CAST:

Artistic direction and choreography | Silke Z.

Performance | Daniela Riebesam, Vivien Kovarbasic, Caroline Simon, Florian Patschovsky, Dennis Schmitz, Angus Balbernie, Bettina Muckenhaupt, Jimin Seo, David Winking, Lisa Kirsch, Karel Vanek, Rebecca Bednarzyk, Hanna Held

Music composition | Nikolaj Grunwald, André Zimmermann

Lighting design | Wolfgang Pütz

Dramaturgy Consulting | Barbara Fuchs

Dance education | Andrea Marton, Caroline Simon

Administration/Management | Olivia Bott

Public Relations | Vinya Cameron

Press work | Kerstin Rosemann

Photo documentation | Jacqueline Stade

The overall concept is supported by the following partners:

Co-production: Fokus Tanz e.V. / Think Big! Festival Munich, Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum. Cooperation: Albertus-Magnus Gymnasium, Cologne, Ruhr University Bochum, German Sport University, Cologne, ehrenfeldstudios e.V.

Funded by the State of NRW as part of the 3-year concept funding and the City of Cologne as part of the multi-year project funding.