August featured not only the mandatory summer visit to Vienna during Impulstanz, but also visits to some performances at Berlin Circus Festival, another fabulous – although younger – fixed point of all things movement during the summer!
Catol Teixeira (CH/BR) – Arrebentação – zona de derrama last chapter
Probably the performance that touched me most this year. „Moving tableaux of bodies … oscillating between group and isolation“, as the program stated, describes it very well. But as usual all attempts of verbal explanation fall short of the actual experience.
Cie. Marie Chouinard (CA) – Magnificat & BodyremixRemix
Magnificat, obwohl insgesamt sicher eine solide Arbeit, blieb leider größere Überraschungen und Aha-Momente schuldig. BodyremixRemix hätte dazu schon eher Potential gehabt, die Thematik körperlicher Restriktionen betrifft früher oder später alle in unterschiedlichem Maß, leider ging die Vorstellung aber länger als erwartet, durch verspäteten Start von Magnificat und eine aus meiner Sicht unnötige Pause zwischen den beiden performances, sodass ich vorzeitig raus musste um rechtzeitig bei Ivo zu sein.
Ivo Dimchev (BG) – Crime Buddy
Ivo, whom I’ve seen at least twice at Impulstanz before, is always worth seeing. Not strictly a dancer, but more of a queer performer, let me say clown (with all respect for that art form), he engages his audience very directly. This time, even though his charisma and his ideas are still great, we thought that he had lost some of his mojo, he seemed less energetic, maybe he thinks too much about his age! I’ll continue to go watch his performances if I get the chance, but I hope he finds his way back into his former energy!
Michael Turinsky (AT) – Work Body
Michael put on an impressive 90min solo performance, which deserves its place at Impulstanz by all means! I particularly liked how he used the first part of the performance for a series of repetitive work steps that brought us, the audience, to his speed, his tempo. He also topped it up with some clever remarks about the absurdity of integration of physically disabled people into a system of work and capitalistic production, which runs at a speed that is not only too fast for them, but also actually much too fast for non-disabled people. Spontaneous applause from the audience!
Mufutau Yusuf (IE) – Impasse
Impasse was an energetic and oftentimes claustrophobic performance, which left us with many questions of interpretation, although some of the scenes clearly evoked images of migration, displacement, flight. The need for the instantaneous collective standing ovation at the end was however not entirely apparent to us.
alta gama “mentir lo mínimo” (cat, fr)
Mentir o mínimo was probably the best acrobatic performance I have seen in many years, not just because of the amazing acrobatic qualities of the two, but also because of their comedian talent, their interactions with the audience, and the way they shared aspects of the personal stories with us. Here, as at Impulstanz, the topic of bodies and their real or assumed restrictions surfaced and was deconstructed in a very positive way!
art for rainy days “how a spiral works” (int)
These people know how to put on a dark and captivating show! Einen Zopf lasse ich mir deshalb trotzdem nicht wachsen 🙂
