Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 1, 2, 2.2, 3.1 and 3.2

   


Description

by Sabine Sonnenschein

Information

Participants

Photos
Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 2
Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting
2.2
Lab for Performance und Post-Dramatic Acting
3.1
Lab for Performance und Post-Dramatic Acting
3.2

     
   


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Description
of the Laboratories for Performance and
Post-Dramatic Acting


by Sabine Sonnenschein


(Dance) performance extinguishes itself and leaves but a trace.
(Dance) performance is an art form of the present.

How does post-dramatic performative acting articulate?
How does reception become participation in performance and live art?

"Post-dramatic theatre is theatre of the present. (The) present is necessarily erosion and slipping away of presence.
It signifies an event which empties the Now, and in this void itself lets memory and anticipation flare up. Present is not something which can be grasped conceptually, but a process of permanent self-division of the Now into ever new splinters of 'just now' and 'now soon'. It has more to do with the death of the theatre than its much-invoked 'life'.
Heiner Müller: 'The specific thing about theatre is not the presence of the living onlooker, but the presence of the transient, the potentially dying.'
(...)
Present in the sense of a buoyant, dwindling attendance, which at the same time is experienced as "away", not-there, as going away already, in post-dramatic theatre crosses out dramatic representation."1

(Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater, 1999)

"The 'fleeting' aspect of the trace simply destroys the weight of presence. The trace has always related an element of the sign to another system of traces' traces, to other absences' absences."2
(André Lepecki in his article "Manically charged presence" with respect to Jacques Derrida's term "Trace" and its meaning for dance and drama studies)

"Art points into a sordid absence, a suffocating condensation where being ceaselessly perpetuates itself as nothingness."3
(Maurice Blanchot)
________________

1.
The specific angle of this laboratory series is an exchange practice, a co-operative encounter of female and male performers, musicians / sound designers, visual artists, art and culture theoreticians, philosophers and researchers of theatre study, making it possible to receive impulses from each other and to put new approaches to the test. A direct connection of art practice and theory production is intended. Exchange and research are the main aspects. No production is developed, but sketches and processes are made public at certain times in which the visitors may participate in various forms for free or a "pay as you wish" fee. The aim is to employ the special skills / competences of the participants without denying redefinitions of roles that are enriching rather than levelling down. Each of the series' laboratories is based on teamwork; all the participants are equally responsible for the lab. The single labs build upon each other. With some participants, the exchange stretches over several labs. There is no fixed team. The initiator organises the frame conditions, invites the participants, has herself participated in every laboratory up to now, and is responsible for the further development of the lab series.

2.
Until now, the process was made public eight times:
The first date, do your solo & join the group with Andrea Bold (performer), Jack Hauser (performer), Anita Kaya (performer), Amadeus Kronheim (performer, sound creator), Gerald Raunig (philosopher, art theoretician), Isolde Schober (performer), Sabine Sonnenschein (performer), Katherina Zakravsky (philosopher, culture theoretician, performer) focused on solo and group improvisation: all participants supplied text input beforehand. A preparatory meeting and a joint improvised laboratory performance took place.

The rather more time-consumingly designed Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 2 with Boris Hauf (sound designer), Sabina Holzer (performer), Marty Huber (theatre theoretician), Gerald Raunig (philosopher) and Sabine Sonnenschein (performer) dealt with the topics of "difference and repetition", "antagonism" and "border".
Texts by Ernesto Laclau/Chantal Mouffe, Gilles Deleuze and Gerald Raunig were used as sources.
A discussion about theoremes was the starting point for performative improvisation work.
A public performative sketch was created; it took place in Im_flieger, its anteroom and in the WUK-Beisl. Stepping forward in the theoretical field was connected with text production.

The same team continues this discussion in Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 2.2:
By means of the thematic nodes "difference and repetition", "antagonism" and "border", a formal framework is created, on the basis of which the overlay possibilities of performance and theory production as well as of action and reception are researched, and possible ways from performance in the direction of post-dramatic acting are explored.
"That which counts is not just the two opposed camps with their line of confrontation; that which counts also is the border, over which everything happens and trails away on a differently oriented molecular fraction line."4
Two public performative sketches were created in which forms of representation were questioned, dislodged and overlaid. These sketches, taking place in Im_flieger and its anteroom, were structured in three parts:
In the first part, interviews were made with visitors in the anteroom, which was equipped with sound, texts concerning the lab, the projection of a video without sound on which a lecture by Gerald Raunig about representation and a subsequent discussion of the lab team could be seen, and offered drinks and snacks. In order to explain one of their working approaches in the lab in one-to-one lectures, performers took single visitors into the room of the performance that was to follow in the second part. After about 30 minutes, all entered the performance space together, and part two began. Here Marty Huber circled incessantly, drawing an interminable vanishing line along the wall. The interview and movement material from part one was now utilised distinctly within the representative framework of the performance. The statements of those interviewed before could be heard and were subsequently overlaid by electronic sounds by Boris Hauf. At first, the movement material of the performers was determined by the topics of difference and repetition. This was followed by a discourse of the five participants about absolute borders, moving of borders and border spaces - a structured joint improvisation with talk, movement and sound. Here Marty had the interminable vanishing line continued by visitors, then taking the pencil herself again to continue drawing. In the third part, the room - accompanied by the sound of the introduction of Gerald Raunig's lecture about representation (soon alienated and overlaid with sounds from part one), by the projection of texts and the repeated lecture part of the performers - eventually turns into a chill-out room with drinks and snacks, a room for talking.

The initial point for Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 3.1 in January, 2002 with Boris Hauf (sound designer), Sabina Holzer (performer), Heike Oehlschlägel (theatre theoretician), Michaela Pöschl (art theoretician, visual artist) and Sabine Sonnenschein (performer) were texts by Hannah Arendt and Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Hannah Arendts demand for publicity, her emphasis on the space of appearance that forms between people through acting and talking, as well as her metaphorical usage of the terms theatre, actor/actress, and onlooker are matters of interest for (dance) performance. In "The Thinking", Arendt takes the world as an appearance, and directly refers to the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whose text "Intertwining - Chiasm" and the term "flesh" contained in it will likewise be central issues of the lab.
"Acting is the only action of the Vita Activa, which takes place directly between people without the mediation of matter, material and objects."
5 (...) "This Between in space is the space of appearance in the most general sense, the space which is created when people appear before each other, and in which they are not only present like other animate or inanimate objects, but expressly make an appearance."6
In Lab...3.1, there were discussions on the one hand - about actions taking place between people, the world as a phenomenon, the surface, the image, images of bodies, the connection between body and thought, touching and being touched, and the "flesh" of the world. On the other hand, improvisations took place based on these talks, in which some of the theoreticians also took part. Every day, there was a period of body training for all. Several elements took shape as material that was freely used in jams: eye contact; dance; reading from a text by Merleau-Ponty about colour perception; reading of texts by Arendt about the network of relations of human issues, acting and talking that leaves no tangible results and final products, and about appearance, seeming and surface; texts by Kathy Acker about sex and loneliness, in which the question "Who is talking?" is highly present as the person of the narrator repeatedly changes its sex; silence; darkness; opening the windows and thus opening the room towards the street; (via soundtape) a man talks about his face; a woman's text about her scars is present in a video projection; text via slide projection,…
The public dates of the lab took place in the form of a "two-part talk": part one was a "discussion" in which the lab participants used their "argumentations" like building blocks, the combination of blocks being variable. The languages or forms of articulation used in this discussion were movement, dance, technical instructions (spoken live), live reading of (theoretical) texts, spoken text as sound source on a sound carrier, electronic sounds, and written text via slide and video projection. The argumentations thus articulated related to each other, contextualised, overlaid and disturbed each other; they were based on the material mentioned above that had come up during the work. Part two was a discussion, a talk of all present about the laboratory's contents.

In April 2002 Laboratory for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 3.2 took place with Nicole Haitzinger (dance and theatre theoretician), Martin Nachbar (performer), Stefan Nowotny (philosopher), Michaela Pöschl (art theoretician, visual artist) and Sabine Sonnenschein (performer) at Tanzquartier Wien.
The discourse with texts by Hannah Arendt and Maurice Merleau-Ponty went a completely different way than in January. Hannah Arendt calls bodily needs and feelings as extremely private, she draws a clear border between political publicity and privacy. What part does the body play in politics? On the one hand, the body in Foucault's sense is the inscription plane of discoursive regimes, an effect of power; on the other hand, the movements of the body are inscribed in its surroundings, acting affects the social order. The body cannot be textualised entirely, its physical materiality has a potential of resistance. In order to follow the question of political articulation via the body, the lab team on April 13 has done interviews and made video recordings around the neo-nazi demonstration against the exhibition "Crimes of the German Wehrmacht" and the counter-demonstration under the title "Prevent the Nazi March". The team did not search for the flat stereotypes in corporeal appearance that are accompanied by a clear classification, but for displacements, for gestures uncorrelated with or relativising that which was spoken. What can be articulated via the body?
The practical trial installations centered around touching and being touched, handiness (referring to Martin Heidegger's "Zuhandenheit des Zeugs" / "handiness of things"), and working with instructions given by the participants to each other. In Lab...3.2 there was also a daily body training for all the participants. The philosopher Gerda Ambros who has deeply gone into Hannah Arendt's opus, was involved in the lab as a guest. She held a lecture about Arendt, followed by a discussion with the lab participants.
During the public dates, the performers shunned "performance" and held conversations with the visitors on the topics of political articulation via the body, privacy and publicity of the body, the body as determinator of the "I" which is subject as well as object, and related to the events of April 13. The conversations took place in TQW and around Heldenplatz; the memory of the intense bodily experience of the demonstrations was activated by revisiting Heldenplatz, where passers-by could be involved in talks about April 13th.

"If we insist on the participatory spectator, we have to renounce the performance."7 To renounce the performance means leaving the secure framework, enabling participation, making room for the proprioception8 of all participants. Post-dramatic acting takes place where the performers withdraw, where participation takes place or reception is endowed with a highly active component. The Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting is based on the intention that theory and art practice should also venture forth from secure territory: among other things, this means displacement, intervention, tactics instead of strategy, re-signification by queer cooking instead of reproduction of the specialty of the house.

3.
Up to now, most of the public appointments took place in Im_flieger; which is a joint project of the 25 dance, theatre and performance groups working in the Viennese WUK, who adapted one of their rehearsal rooms as performance space. The studio character remains and creates space for artistic processes not conforming to conventional performance practice, for theoretical and practical exchange, discussion and discourse. Apart from the rehearsals, up to five performances a month can be realised with little technical and organisatorial expense.
The idea is to create for the free Viennese dance, theatre and performance scene a public space for contemporary artistic discourse, experiments and international exchange, co-ordinated by an artist collective.

_____________________________________________________________
1) Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater; Verlag der Autoren, 1999, p. 259-260
2) André Lepecki, Manisch aufgeladene Gegenwärtigkeit; in: ballett international/tanz aktuell Jahrbuch 1999, p. 86
3) Maurice Blanchot, The Original Experience, in: The Space of Literature; University of Nebraska Press, 1982;
zit. aus: Clive Cazeaux, The Continental Aesthetics Reader; Routledge, 2000, p. 350
4) Gilles Deleuze/Claire Parnet: Dialoge; Suhrkamp, 1980, S.142
5) Hannah Arendt, "Vita Activa",Piper, 2001, p.17
6) ibid., p.250
7) Emil Hvratin, in Janus, 9/01, p. 66
8) Perception of one's own body. See Marie-Luise Angerer, body options: körper.spuren.medien.bilder; Turia + Kant, Vienna, 1999,
p. 178

   
     
   
Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting
Info:
sabine.sonnenschein@wuk.at
Phone: +43-1-403 1048
   


Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 1

do your solo & join the group
with
Andrea Bold (performer),
Jack Hauser (performer, musician),
Anita Kaya (performer),
Amadeus Kronheim (musician, performer),
Gerald Raunig (philosopher),
Isolde Schober (performer),
Sabine Sonnenschein (performer),
Katherina Zakravsky (philosopher, performer)
Open lab: 15.11.2000
Im_flieger / WUK; Währingerstraße 59, A-1090 Wien

Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 2

with
Boris Hauf (sound designer, musician),
Sabina Holzer (performer),
Marty Huber (performance theoretician, theatre scientist),
Gerald Raunig (philosopher),
Sabine Sonnenschein (performer)
in March 2001
Open lab: 28.3.2001
Im_flieger / WUK; Währingerstraße 59, A-1090 Wien

Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 2.2
with
Boris Hauf (sound designer, musician),
Sabina Holzer (performer),
Marty Huber (performance theoretician, theatre scientist),
Gerald Raunig (philosopher),
Sabine Sonnenschein (performer)
in June 2001
Open lab: 19. & 20.6.2001
Im_flieger / WUK; Währingerstraße 59, A-1090 Wien


Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting 3.1

with
Boris Hauf (sound designer, musician),
Sabina Holzer (performer),
Heike Oehlschlägel (theatre scientist),
Michaela Pöschl (art theoretician, visual artist),
Sabine Sonnenschein (performer)
January, 14. - 26. 2002
Open Lab: 25. & 26.1.2002
Im_flieger / WUK; Währingerstraße 59, A-1090 Wien

Lab for Performnace and Post-Dramatic Acting 3.2

with
Nicole Haitzinger (dance theoretician, theatre scientist),
Martin Nachbar (performer),
Stefan Nowotny (philosopher),
Michaela Pöschl (art theoretician, visual artist),
Sabine Sonnenschein (performer)
April, 8.- 20. 2002
Open lab: 19.& 20.4.2002
Tanzquartier Wien
; Museumsplatz 1, A-1070 Wien

     
   

Idea, organisation: Sabine Sonnenschein
Organisational support: Eva Brantner (June 2001), Marty Huber (January 2002)
Technical attendant: Monika Gruber (June 2001), Erwin Breznik (January 2002)
Video: instant image - laufbilder für theater / tanz / performance, Roman Hiksch (Lab...2, Lab...2.2 and Lab...3.2);
Johanna Tatzgern (Lab...1), Bernadette Dewald (Lab...3.1) and Oleg Soulimenko (Lab...3.1 and Lab...3.2)
Photo: Ines Nikolavcic, Niki Witoszynskyj

     
   

Support:
Wien Kultur, WUK, Tanzquartier Wien

   

   
Participants (November 2000 - April 2002):


Andrea Bold:

*1967, A
Performer.
Came to Vienna from Cologne, and moves since in the areas of dance, performance and classical piano. She creates her own pieces, teaches at the Bruckner Konservatorium in Linz and was member of the Damen-Improvisation & Herren-BIGbäng (1995 - 99). Her Education led from studies of Rhythmik and classical piano to contemporary dance-techniques (Release, Contact Improvisation, Klein Technique), ballet, yoga and Qi gong. She spent two years in New York (working among others at the Movement Research Institute, the Susan Klein School of dance and the Jivamukti Yoga Center) and is approved Craniosacral therapist.

Nicole Haitzinger:
*1976, A
Dance and theatre theoretician.
1994-2000 theatre studies at Vienna university, journalism and communication (specialsing in public relations and advertising). Diploma thesis: Real-Time Composition, an art research project in the border area of theatre, performance and dance. Since autumn 2000 studying for doctorate and dissertation on theatre studies (working title: Attempt on a phenomenology of European dance performance - terminology body - space - time), specialising in dance studies. Autumn 2001: Research grant for scientific work with Prof. Dr. Claudia Jeschke, department of dance studies, Cologne university.
Projects:
1999: Scientific observer and research for the European art project "Real-Time-Composition", organised by Re.al in Lisbon, in the framework of her diploma (as scholarship holder).
1999: Project oriented co-operation in T Junction Contemporary Dance and Performance (Project by Nigel Charnock, audited by João Fiadeiro.)
2000: Tutor at Vienna university / Institute for theatre studies with Univ.Ass. Mag. Fuxjäger.
2001: supervision of the project "Black Honey Drops", a co-operation of Akemi Takeya and Ko Murobushi (ImpulsTanz Festival, Museumsquartier, Vienna).
2001: Attendance and documentation of the choreographic workshop "Thought, Poetry and Body in Action" by Vera Mantero at "Tanz im August" in Berlin.
November 2001: Documentation and scientific attendance of the research project "Autorschaft" with Liz King, Philipp Gehmacher and Pilottanzt in Tanzquartier Vienna.

Boris Hauf:

*1974, UK
Sound creator, musician.
Cello und piano studies in london and at the conservatory of vienna, austria;
saxophone studies at the bruckner conservatory linz; flute studies with katrina emtage and marc grauwels;
philosophy and musicology studies at the vienna university; autodidactic studies in composition, instrumentation and counterpoint; studies at SAMT (studio for advanced music & media technology), linz.
Concerts in europe, north africa, latin america and the usa.
Comissioned compositions for international festivals, radio- & tv-stations, film, ensembles, solists and theater.
International grants and prizes.
8 CD releases, for example on Durian, Mego, Extraplatte:
...efzeg/ grain (durian 012), 2000 /// efzeg: (EX 361-2);1998 /// the eschelberg takes (strynx records at-n 1401-1);1998 /// fuckhead: video arena (PA 12); 1995 // /fuckhead: The Male Comedy (mego 025); 1998 /// Das Eigene, GrabenFestTage 1998: Novotny/Kurzmann/Lehn/Mütter/Hauf- Josef & Josef. Unsere Automaten (Josef Novotny) (EX-374-2); 1998...
Founder of efzeg; co-founder of pull my daisy; member of ensemble 68; member of nouvelle cuisine, plays/records with fuckhead, co-operations.
Collaboration with Vera Mantero (P) in "Um estar aqui cheio" and with Sabina Holzer, Litó Walkey and Marty Huber in "der Ort des Begehrens ist, wo der Traum brüchig wird". Was involved in the improvisation project "not to know" by Andrew Harwood and Benoît Lachambre at "ImPulsTanz", Vienna.

Jack Hauser:
*1958, A
Performer, musician; works with various media.
Studied electro-acoustic music 1983-85.
Experimental work with various media in a supercontext.
Collective art with David Ender, Lux Flux, Miryam van Doren, Luther Blissett & Carte de tendre.
Member of the Invisible College & Austria Filmmakers Coop.

Sabina Holzer:
*1966, A
Performer.
Studied physical theatre in Austria and France and contemporary dance and performance at the Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten Amsterdam. Her approach is strongly influenced by J.Hamilton, R.Zapora, D.Fleming, L.Booth.
Since 1994 she develops her own work, which has been shown in Nl, G, A, FR, [for example "Faint voices at their loudest" (solo), "bodies unfold" (duo), presented at festivals like Moving Mime (NL), Mimos (FR) or Pandorrafestival (A)].
Since 1998 she lives in Vienna, as a performer closely related to Bilderwerfer (Daniel Aschwanden) and Toxic Dreams (Josi Wanunu).
She creates her own work in cooperation with e.g. Jörg Weber (Theater des Augenblicks), Sonja Schmidlehner, Oliver Schrader, Sabine Sonnenschein (Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting) and since August 2001 with Vera Mantero ("thought, poetry and the body in action", "un etre ici plein", "new creation 2002 - V.Matero and guests"). In 2002 she presented the performance "der Ort des Begehrens ist dort, wo der Traum brüchig wird" in collaboration with Boris Hauf, Litó Walkey and Marty Huber at dietheater Künstlerhaus.

Marty Huber:
*1973, A
Performance theoretician, theatre scientist, free dramatic adviser.
Lives in Vienna.
Chairwoman of Rosa Lila Tip, a consultancy and information institution for lesbians and gays,
founding member of the forum theatre group "seitenweXel",
former staff member of MAIZ (Linz) in connection with their language acquisition and culture programme.
Dramaturgic works with Barbara Kraus, FOXFIRE Theatre, Sabina Holzer and Bilderwerfer.
Momentarily working on her dissertation "Gender - Politics - Performance in East-West Comparison".

Anita Kaya:
*1961, A
Choreographer, dancer, performer, videoartist.
Lives in Vienna.
Studies include: experimental theatre in Vienna and contemporary dance in Vienna, Germany and New York (grants by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Arts / Austria in 1992 and 1995), educated in movement analysis and movement notation. Since 1984 working as dance performer in various dance and theatre productions (like T-Junction-project with Nigel Charnock).
Founded OYA-Produktion in 1988, and since then artistic director, choreographer and dancer in various dance productions, performances, installations, site-specific performances, improvisation projects and dance videos (TSURU TSURU, BACKSPACE, LET YOUR HAIR DOWN, MODUL 1+1), which have been performed on festivals in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Mexico and Finland. 1999 Artist in Residence at Zodiak - Center for New Dance.
Artistic cooperation with artists in the field of dance, theatre, photography, video, film and music. Teaching contemporary dance, butoh and improvisation. Member of the BUTTERFLY EFFECT NETWORK

Amadeus Kronheim:
*1963, A
Musician, performer.
Continuously changes sides between acting, music and dance. Grown up in Linz, Ireland and the Mühlviertel, he lives in Vienna, where he works/worked with various groups of the free dance and theatre scene: e.g. with Carpa Theater, Lux Flux, Miki Malör and Damen-Improvisation & Herren-BIGbäng. During the last years, he has increasingly acted as a dancing non-dancer: Magazin mit allen Haremsfallen (1996),Charley's Tanten (1997), drüsch - enthaart & gemäht (1999), hüpfen zentral (2000). Temporary studies of musicology and electro-acoustics, sound technician.

Martin Nachbar:
*1971, D
Performer.
1996-1992 studies at SNDO, Amsterdam (diploma). 1995 studies and work in New York in various places and with different people.
1996 performer in "eat, eat, eat" by Hans v.d. Broeck of Les Ballets C. de la B., Gent.
1997-1998 performer in "better a blip than a blop" by Martin Butler for the National Ballet, Amsterdam; making of "undressed" and "photographic memory", both premiered in Amsterdam; making of "corrupt patience", performance installation shown in gallery "UI", Amsterdam.
1998-1999 studies at PARTS, Brussels.
1999 performer in and co-maker of "events for television (again)" by Tom Plischke and the B.D.C.; performer in "aviation/abreviation" by Schiyo Takahashi, Antwerp.
2000 making of "ReKonstrukt", premiere in May in LOFFT, Leipzig; reconstruction of "Affectos Humanos" for "affects/rework" by Joachim Gerstmeier, Martin Nachbar and Tom Plischke; premiere in February in Mousonturm, Frankfort.
2001 performer in "re(sort)" by Tom Plischke.

Stefan Nowotny:

*1968, A
Philosopher, publicist.
Lives in Brussels and Vienna. Philosophy diploma at Vienna university, doctorate studies at Vienna university. Currently at Louvain-la-Neuve university, Belgium.
His main topics in research and work are: critical scrutiny of the "culture" discourse, theory of culturalism and racism, theory of the archivarian "memory", political theory, phenomenology.
Co-editor of: "Michel Henry. Zur Selbsterprobung des Lebens und der Kultur", (with Rolf Kühn), Alber, 2002 and "Grenzen des Kulturkonzepts. Meta-Genealogien", (with Michael Staudigl), Turia + Kant 2003; various contributions in philosophical publications and magazines (Falter, Kultur-Risse, Kultur, Triebwerk etc.); lectures in academical, art and adult education institutions; co-organisation and -conception of research seminars at Vienna university; freelance culture work and theoretical co-operation in art projects (e.g. lecture perfomance with the singer Agnes Heginger in the framework of "rush hour" in Kunsthalle Wien, 1997; basic and conceptual work for the film project "Altes Haus. Szenen einer Erinnerung" by Friedemann Derschmidt, premiere presumably 2002). Political-activist work in the framework of the projects "gettoattack" and "Wiener Wahl Partie".
Founding member of the School for Theoretical Politics, Vienna, where he also gave the workshop "Zero Point of Politics" at the Academy of Visual Arts, Vienna (2001, with Boris Buden), as well as conception and organisation of the symposium "Cultural Touch" in the framework of Wiener Festwochen, 2001 ("du bist die welt", Künstlerhaus Vienna, with Boris Buden and Oliver Marchart).

Heike Oehlschlägel:

*1966, D
Theatre scientist, free-lance dramatic adviser.
Studied biology, environment counselling, German and psychoanalysis. Body training through Asian martial art, especially Shotokan-Karate. Theatre workshops, practical projects and productions with
Christof Nel, Josef Szeiler, Saburo Teshigawara, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Manfred Wenninger, and others. According to work setup, member or chief dramatic adviser of the free theatre group K.Kommando in Frankfort.
Currently works on her dissertation "Präsenz und Kommunikation - Zur Konstituierung von Gegenwart auf dem Theater Einar Schleefs" (Presence and communication - on the constitution of presence in the theatre of Einar Schleef) in the framework of the graduate college "Zeiterfahrung und ästhetische Wahrnehmung" (Experience of time and aesthetic perception).

Michaela Pöschl:
*1970, A
Art theoretician, visual artist.
Lives in Vienna.
1990-1999 Vienna university, studies art history, special topics: body art, avantgarde film.
1995-96 University of California Los Angeles, Exchange Student, working with Paul McCarthy, Amelia Jones and Peter Sellars. Since October 2000 studying film/video with Birgit Hein at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig. Since October 2001 studying with Renee Green at the Akademie für Bildende Künste in Vienna.
Publications: "Der Körper muss hart sein / I tense the muscles in my stomach till I puke", in: Swamp Journal, ed. Helmut Ploebst, co-operation with Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Wiener Festwochen and tanz2000.at, Vienna 2000.
"Kurt Kren. Die Aktions-Filme. Schnitt und Perversion" (Kurt Kren. The action films. Cutting and perversion), Tectum Verlag, Marburg, autumn 2000.
"Lets make it Halloween. Get out your knife, carve me like a pumpkin and then lets fuck. Thoughts on the flesh of Kurt Kren, Paul McCarthy and Ron Athey", in: Kurt Kren, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Julius Hummel, Vienna 1998.
Performances in Richard Heller Gallery and CalState Fine Arts Gallery (1996), in dietheater Konzerthaus (1997), dietheater Künstlerhaus (2000), and others.
Videos: "Der Schlaf der Vernunft" (The sleep of reason, 1999), "Ich bin der letzte Dreck" (I'm no better than dirt, 2000), Ausstellung/exhibition (2001).

Gerald Raunig:
*1963, A
Philosopher, art theoretician.
Lives in Vienna.
1999 doctorate in philosophy, Universities of Klagenfurt and Vienna, thesis on 'Die Aufhebung der Autonomie in den Grenzüberschreitungen der Kunst. Materialien für eine Ästhetik der Grenzüberschreitung'.
Lecturer on political aesthetics at the Institute for Philosophy, University of Klagenfurt/A and at the Department of Visual Studies and Art, University of Lüneburg/D;
codirector of eipcp (European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies), Vienna;
coordinator of the transnational research project republicart;
excom member of EFAH (European Forum for the Arts and Heritage), Bruxelles;
editor of the periodical Kulturrisse.
Numerous lectures, essays and publications on art theory, political aesthetics, cultural politics and politics of difference.
Recent books:
Charon. Eine Ästhetik der Grenzüberschreitung, Wien: Passagen 1999
(ed.) sektor3/kultur. Widerstand, Kulturarbeit, Zivilgesellschaft, Wien: IG Kultur Österreich 2000
Wien Feber Null. Eine Ästhetik des Widerstands, Wien: Turia + Kant 2000

Isolde Schober:
*1960, A
Choreographer, performer, dancer, shiatsu practitioner.
Studies in the areas of dance, acting, voice work, improvisation in Vienna, Florence, New York (1990-92 grants by the Federal Ministry of Education and Arts / Austria).
Since 1989 work in conjunction with various choreographers, performers, groups in Austria, Denmark, France, USA, Switzerland and and especially with Nina Martin/ NYC and Adéle Riton/ Strasbourg. In 1990 she etablished IZIS PRODUCTIONS and developed her own work by creating solos and duo performancs.
Founding member of Damen & HerrenBIGbäng in 1994.
Ongoing research on improvisation as a performance medium.

Sabine Sonnenschein:
*1970, A
Performer, Choreographer,
Studied: theatre studies, philosophy and art history at Vienna university (no degree). Dance and performance education: contemporary dance, classical ballett, contact improvisation, release techniques, developmental movement, physical theatre and voice in Vienna and NYC (with David Steele, Zvi Gotheiner, Donna Uchizono, Jeremy Nelson, Andrew Harwood, Gill Clarke, Wendell Beavers, Lloyd Newson, Meg Stuart, Meredith Monk...) Scholarship by Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst / Austria for dance studies in NYC 1994/95. Participant in European Choreographic Forum 4 in Dartington/GB organized by Butterfly Effect Network (BEN); member of BEN. 1996 Choreodrome of the Place Theatre/London for a project in collaboration with Annis Joslin/GB.
1999 (concerning the production "EXEO") "THE WIND" - award for the innovative and experimental features given to the body - /"5th PUF Pula International Theatre Festival" (Pula/Croatia).
Performances at international festivals: "Im Puls Tanz" (Vienna), "imagetanz" (dietheater Künstlerhaus, Vienna), "neuer tanz" (WUK, Vienna), "Tanzsprache" (WUK, Vienna), "kostprobe" (Tanztendenz, Munich), "Sprachen des Körpers" (Stuttgart), "4+4 Days in Motion" (Prague), "5th PUF International Theatre Festival" (Pula; Croatia), "Solo Dance 2001" (St.Petersburg) etc.; and "Knitting Factory" (NYC), "Altes Stadthaus" (Berlin, in a cooperation).
Initiated Lab for Performance and Post-Dramatic Acting.

Katherina Zakravsky:
* 1965, A
Philosopher, cultural theoretician, performer, author.
Lives in Vienna and Maastrich.
Spezialized in Immanuel Kant, Walter Benjamin, film and gender theory.
Book publication: "Heilige Gewänder", Vienna,1994; numerous other publications.
Performs as Kv, cooperated with Lux Flux (Wien) and Saira Blanche Theatre (Moscow).

   



Photos:

Lab for Performance und Post-Dramatic Acting 2.2
(c) Niki Witoszynskyj

 



Videostills:

Lab for Performance und Post-Dramatic Acting 2

 
 
 


Photos:

Labor für Performance und postdramatisches Agieren
3.1
(c) Niki Witoszynskyj