Landscapes

a collaboration with the BewegGrund Performance Group

Landscapes took a completely different turn than originally planned. It was essential that we were able to meet as a group three more times in the studio before COVID-19 started. We had three rehearsals where the 22 participants met. From the beginning, there was a very supportive, mindful, and encouraging atmosphere. Through improvisation, we gained confidence in our own movement language, which was to flow into the piece 'Landscapes'. We worked on our individual movements as well as composed in the context of the group.
The theme of the landscape was always present, viewing the body itself as a landscape, as well as the perspective of multiple bodies in the space as a landscape. During the three rehearsals, a first draft of about a 10-minute beginning of the piece was created.
Then, as mentioned, everything changed. We had to cancel the rehearsals and performances due to COVID-19. Since there was already such a strong sense of group and we were interrupted in the middle of the creation process, we agreed to create a composition for the camera instead of the piece. The participants were given two thematic tasks, one of which they could implement through dance. They were filmed with mobile phone cameras in their immediate surroundings. This resulted in landscape portraits, which were assembled into a virtual dance piece by filmmaker Jana Papenbroock. The videos were musically accompanied by music from Carl Friedrich Abel, played by the gambists Dina Kehl (short video) and Paolo Pandolfo (long video). Originally, the encounter of Baroque music and music by Morton Feldman was part of our creation, but in the video, we decided on Baroque to give the music a unifying character, as the videos themselves were already very different.
The creation and implementation of the videos was an alternative given the circumstances, which gave us the feeling of bringing the piece 'Landscapes' to life in a different way and sharing it with the world.

Dance: Damian Bright, Enea Catti, Loredana D’Ambrosio, Karin Egger Ylmaz, Rebecca Frey, Silvana Gehrig, Beatrice Häusler, Philomena Heinel, Romy Inauen, Elisabeth Iseli, Connie Jungo, Dina Kehl, Mikosch Loutsenko, Martha Roquet, Sandra Sasdi, Ranja Schmid, Kathrin Schnyder, Samira Schorno, Florence Schudel, Lukas Schwander, Roland Witschi and Daniela Zurmühle

Choreography in collaboration with the dancers: Gianna Grünig

Music Viola da Gamba Suite in D Minor I. Arpeggiata by Carl Friedrich Abel: Dina Kehl

Assistent: Rebecca Frey

Production: BewegGrund

Videoeditor: Jana Papenbroock

With the kind support by: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kultur Kanton Bern, Ruth & Arthur Scherbarth Stiftung, GVB Kulturstiftung