danzon_eng

for twelve years...  

Interview with one of the four Netherlands-based theatermakers in PerformLab exchange programme in Istanbul.  Ayşe Draz & Mehmet Kerem Özel [The Turkish translation of this interview is published on  unlimited ] What is the essence of performance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary performance? I think there are so many ways to answer this question, but if I were to try to describe for myself what the essence of performance is; The first thing that comes to my mind is the desire to be together, to play the game of seeing and being seen, and above all a personal but absolutely collective experience. I am convinced that performance allows for a deep experience that is simultaneously intimate, collective, intellectual, emotional and physical. It can make it possible to question, decontextualise or reformulate our relationship to the other, to reality, or to society. Performance is the place of the sublime and also the place of politics. How then to describe co...

The Schöne Aussicht (Bright View) International Theater Festival, which appeals to young people and children, but most of all to those who still feel young and have a child spirit, ended last Sunday (June, 13), but the recordings of the performances can be watched until the end of June. One of the four shows of the festival was the production of Compagnie Bakelite from France called Envahisseurs (Invaders). It was Olivier Rannou, who both created and staged it, which is one of the qualified examples of object theater. Its subtitle, “Theatre with Unknown Objects”, contains a pleasant humor about both its content and form and the show itself. On one hand, it refers to the "unknown" state of the invading aliens, and on the other hand, it mocks the "known" state of all the objects used in the show, which we are familiar from our daily lives. Well, what are the things Rannou used in the show? Three bond-style briefcases, miniature soldiers, visceral dolls, touristic min...

Interview with one of the four Netherlands-based theatermakers in PerformLab exchange programme in Istanbul.  Ayşe Draz & Mehmet Kerem Özel [The Turkish translation of this interview is published on  unlimited ] © Mélanie Musisi What is the essence of performance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary performance? ‘’For now…’’ I see it as an ongoing process and or attempt to reflect on the time. The past, present, future and all the grey speculative areas in between. A tool, an arena and or platform where beauty, grotesque, chaos, structure, realism and surrealism can clash, collide, transform, connect, find friction, resolve and transcend to then bring us back to earth again. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? I believe in the transformative power of art. For me performing arts or any art form in that matter gives us a playground to make space for our individual and collective imagination. This can be in the form of transformation of physical...

Since the International Theater Festival Schöne Aussicht (Bright View), which is organized biennially by JES (Junges Ensemble Stuttgart / Stuttgart Young Ensemble) with the financial support of the municipality and the ministry, was canceled last year due to the pandemic, it takes place this year both in the physical space and online for the theaters in Germany starting to open.   There are not only performances at the festival, but also various events and most importantly, a workshop organized by ASSITEJ (International Association of Children's and Youth Theaters) that lasts for a week during the festival. This workshop titled Concepts for a Theater of Solidarity for Young Audiences is held via Zoom and is open to professional artists and anyone wanting to change things. Respecting and not categorizing the various realities lived in, the workshop is built on thinking and exchanging ideas about questions such as; How can we create theatre for young audiences that practices solida...

Interview with one of the four Netherlands-based theatermakers in PerformLab exchange programme in Istanbul.  Ayşe Draz & Mehmet Kerem Özel [The Turkish translation of this interview is published on  unlimited ] What is the essence of performance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary performance? For me, contemporary performance is about an encounter ; with another, with a stranger, with one self. I am curious about what can happen in this space between us, and what possibilities can be evoked, rehearsed, dismantled, that everyday life denies us. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?  A friend recently said to me: I am less interested in vectors, but rather art that impregnates my mind with new thoughts and dreaming. I love this statement, because this is where transformation occurs for me, in the slowing down that art can create. By providing a stretching out of time, space and new assemblies, I believe that we are able to create alterna...

[In memory of Anna Halprin, who passed away on May 24, 2021 at the age of 101, I'm sharing my blog post of May 11, 2012 by expanding it.]    Recently, while reading about Pina Bausch, I came across the name of Anna Halprin in one of the texts. So, I realized that it was time to watch the documentary  Breathe made visible – Revolution in dance, Anna Halprin that had been waiting on my shelf for nearly a year.  The 80-minute documentary, dated 2009 and directed by ruedi gerber, tells about the dancer, choreographer, “shaman” Anna Halprin, who was 86 years old at the time of filming. The documentary, which opens with Halprin's words emphasizing the relationship of human, body and movement with nature, takes place almost entirely in nature. Halprin moved from east to west coast of USA, from New York to California in the early 1950s, as soon as she realized that urban environment is not a nurturing place for her.  Her husband, landscape architect Lawrence...