Des Gesprächfightfadens
by depart on Juni 16, 2005
“Des Gesprächsfightfadens”:
word of the wings stutters & flutters
a language re-de-re-construction performance for two performers, video backdrop, disillustrative commentary and sound
duration: ca. 45 min.
DEPART’s germanguage desastroy, a veritabledance lingo-limbo. Dramatized worldplayhem.
A staged piece with toadloads of glimmericks fallinglong upwards from heaven’t scene and hertz beforeplay.
In DEPART’s “Des Gesprächsfightfadens” there is no dramatic plot per se as in conventional theater, but there are recurring themes and ideas, more like in a musical composition. This work relies heavily on DEPART’s belief in the controlled overflow of sensoric input. The audience is supplied with a sheer mass of wordplay in order to provoke a struggle for perception and conscious processing of input. The more you struggle to get everything, the less interesting the piece will be. But if you are able to relax and let your thoughts wander freely, as in a kind of mediational state of mind, you might be able to grab one meaning here, or one there but go along with the flow of the piece easily. The goal of this endeavour is to create a certain state of consciousness where the seemingly superfluous and absurd action supporting the piece becomes a sort of focus of attention itself. Then it starts being a kind of kinetic sculpture of its own, providing DEPART’s beloved “impressures”, moments of pure experience, where an absurd constellation of actions and objects suddenly is not regarded as artificial anymore but experienced like a mountain, a lake, or a leaf. Totally self-evident and understood. To achieve this kind of complexity, DEPART were refining and distilling very thoroughly, even pedantic, to make sure there is still enough funk left in this painstakingly constructed language puzzle.
Unfortunately or thankfully, this piece is virtually impossible to translate into other languages.
Commissioned by ARGEkultur Salzburg, Land & Stadt Salzburg.
Shown December 15th and 16th, 2005 at ARGEkultur, Salzburg, Austria
Performers: Georg Hobmeier, Gregor Ladenhauf
Video: Leonhard Lass
Sound: Gregor Ladenhauf
Parts of this piece are also in effect in disguise as an installation called “GESPRAUM”, shown at paraflows07 exhibition, Vienna, Austria
We Only Do (I-III)
by depart on Juni 12, 2005
“We only do…”:
freemote controlemodeled headphonetic puppeteering
interactive-stage dance performance for three dancers, computer-generated choreography, motiontracking, sound & video
duration: ca. 45 min.
eyeconed woeshoeshine, choreogenetics and stagedicing, 3Dancers on their way to form
This project saw an evolutionary development from early incarnations as a piece for two dancers with a rather mechanical and robot-like form to a very open and flowing structured piece in the final performance. Central to the piece is the idea of a kinetic system that is addressed by a generative process, which is making decisions according to a set of rules defined beforehand by the choreographer. The stage itself is a blank space monitored by a motiontracking system. The movement of the dancers is translated into sound and video via the motiontracking system EyeCon and tools like PureData, Reaktor and Max/MSP. The dancers would receive command structures like spatial coordinates and specific motion quality or modes of conduct via wireless headphones. Early stages of the piece were not completely determined but still very arbitrary in their decision-making, the later versions already had elaborate regulatory behaviour based on marcov-chain logical structures. When the system was thus established, there were also attempts to introduce some viral behaviour to the system in order to reestablish a more unpredictable outcome. This piece was first commissioned by the TransMedia-Akademie Hellerau and further developed with funding at the Dance Unlimited Master Program of the Theaterschool Amsterdam.
Idea, Production: Georg Hobmeier
Pure Data, Reaktor, Max/MSP: DEPART
Dancers:
(Amsterdam Version) Nina Fajdiga, Vlasta Veselko, Jadi Carboni/Urshka Vohar
(Dresden Version) Anja Epperlein, Mandy Partsch
Support: Dance Unlimited, AFK, Alex Schaub
Thanks to Thomas Dumke, Bram Vreeswijk for their inspirational contribution
Shows 2004-2007 at:
Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden, Germany
ICA, London, Great Britain
Melkweg, Amsterdam, Netherlands
ARGEkultur, Salzburg, Austria