I tapped my temples with my fingertips, as though to relieve some pressure or pain, pushed back my chair, and turned to the priest: “Do thresholds occur in the religious tradition?” I asked him. —“Literally or figuratively?” —“Both.”
While the priest pondered, the others said whatever came into their heads.
(P. Handke, Across)
“Suspended Service” (AT) is a full-length dance performance for the stage. The central element of this work is the movement in and with belt loops, i.e. loops that hang from the ceiling and thus free the body or a part of it from gravity. Based on Peter Handke’s thoughts on the threshold as a place of transformation, transfiguration and surrender, I develop a transformative and multi-layered visual language with my movement practice and a subversive interpretation of carnival traditions. The audience has time to see their own seeing, to decide if and when they surrender to an illusion or not. Body images and masks become projection surfaces of meaning, which constantly change in the course of the performance through dance based on subtle improvisation. The movement is staged using ritualistic elements of carnival, in which figures such as witches and nature spirits take up space, thus overriding the laws of everyday life and replacing them with a visual world that twists the “normal” and constantly reverses itself.
The performance is one hour long and was developed during my weekly practice at Studio 0/1 and given shape in a residency at Lake Studios Berlin.
credits:
choreography, dance: Aaron Lang
live music: Pablo Lienhardt
mask crafting: Ilan Gratini
excerpt of Peter Handke’s “Across”
developed in Studio 0/1 and Lake Studios Berlin