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