Helmut Ploebst in derStandard about Empathy Project vol 1

A review from the derStandard by Helmut Ploebst after our Empathy Project vol. 1 at imagetanz in brut/Vienna. For full text follow the link: http://derstandard.at/1268700946217/Imagetanz-Tanz-als-Einfuehlungsdroge
A text is in german.

Imagetanz

Tanz als Einfühlungsdroge

18. März 2010, 17:31

Die Choreografinnen Magdalena Chowaniec und Martina Ruhsam

Wien - Der Mund steht ihnen offen, als hätten sie den Leibhaftigen gesehen und dabei eine Maulsperre bekommen. Die drei Tänzer des "Empathy Project Vol. I" der jungen Choreografin Magdalena Chowaniec, das bei Imagetanz im Brut-Theater uraufgeführt wurde, sind Süchtige.

Besser gesagt: Diese Tänzer versetzen sich mit unheimlicher Konsequenz in die beschädigten Körper von Drogenabhängigen. Sie dröhnen sich nicht selbst zu, sondern bereiten ihre Aufführungen stundenlang vor. Durch Einfühlung, als Ergebnis einer langen künstlerischen Recherche. Seit 2008 beschäftigt sich Chowaniec mit den Wirkungen von Empathie im Tanz, deren politischen Aspekt die aus Polen stammende Künstlerin besonders unterstreicht.

Das Ergebnis ist kein Sozialrührstück, sondern eine choreografische Installation von beinahe Beckett'schen Ausmaßen. Die drei Figuren torkeln auf dem Tanzboden, versuchen in ihrem Weggetretensein so etwas wie ein Bühnenbild aufzubauen. Da sie kaum noch fähig sind, sich auf den Beinen zu halten oder einfachste Handlungen auszuführen, geraten sie in einen Teufelskreis vergeblicher Bemühungen.

Chowaniec, die mit Gabri M. Einsiedl und einem umwerfenden Radek Hewelt auch selbst auftrat, verunsicherte die sozial sensible Imagetanz-Zuschauerschaft durch ihre Gratwanderung zwischen künstlerischer Illusion und dokumentarischem Realismus. Geradezu perfekt wäre das "Empathy Project Vol. I" auch für ein junges Publikum - durch das Fehlen aller Belehrungsattitüde, durch Ironie trotz Drastik der Darstellung.

[...]

Diesem Erfolg schadet es natürlich keinesfalls, dass das Brut zurzeit gerade das "hottest theatre in town" ist und dass die Kuratorin des Festivals - Bettina Kogler - auch auf die einladenden Gesten künstlerischer Partyformate gesetzt hat.

(Helmut Ploebst, DER STANDARD/Printausgabe, 19.03.2010)

"Empathy project, vol 1" in Pinkafeld

Empathy project. Vol 1. on the way! The premiere will take place during imagetanz festival in brut in March 2010. We have made a research between drug-addicts on Karlsplatz and now a residency in Pinkafeld/Burgenland...
Project is initiated and led by Magdalena Chowaniec.

Few words about the project:

‘I look for a role that hopefully I feel empathy with and that I can understand and love, but also that has that challenge for me to play - a different kind of role, a different type of character, a different time period.’
Kathy Bates

‘Bodies of drug addicts on Karlsplatz became to me highly inspirational in all their ambivalent existence. The way they inspired me, and the admiration I started to share for their incredible bodily capabilities, occurred very paradoxal - in all its misery becoming almost poetic to my eyes.’
Magdalena Chowaniec

Empathy Project puts the phenomena of empathy in the center of interest and questions the importance of empathy our days, it looks for the possibilities of bridging the social and artistic, abstract on a ‘new’ empathic level. In ‘Vol. I’ reflections upon the outsiders lead to the questions about what's allowed, acceptable and what inappropriate in the society of theatre trying to turn excluded into exclusive. ‘Vol. I’ examines the methods, possibilities and effects of empathizing with the excluded ones through the process based at first on a search for a common empathy in a group. Three human beings turn into a ‘human tabula rasa’. Crossing the border between life and theatre, they rush through the world and melt with different surroundings becoming a part of various landscapes. They look for a ‘homeless esthetics’ in art, taking another point of view onto life – practicing homelessness, performing junkies, researching physicality of the rejected ones.


Participants:
Concept: Magdalena Chowaniec (PL/A)
Research/Creation/Performance: Gabri Einsiedl (A), Magdalena Chowaniec (PL/A), Radek Hewelt (PL/A)
Technical help/Sound: Vladi Tchapanov (BLG/A)

Links:
www.mariamagdalena.cc
www.myspace.com/rockthemob
www.madamlena.blogspot.com

TONIGHTS TUNE trailer!!!

Dear guests,

I strongly encourage you to watch a trailer of my last piece TONIGHTS TUNE that I have just finished to edit.
TONIGHTS TUNE had its premiere on June 2nd 2009 at WUK in Vienna.
Video-recording was made during our 3rd performance at WUK on June 4th.



TONIGHTS TUNE

Artistic direction: Radek Hewelt

Choreogarphy and performance: Gabri M. Einsiedl, Dominik Grünbühel, Radek Hewelt, Linda Samaraweerova

Light design: Nicole Kropiunik

Special thanks to: Johannes Maile (WUK)

TONIGHTS TUNE could be developed thanks to the kind support of Culture Department of the City of Vienna (Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien - MA7) and WUK


TONIGHTS TUNE is a score composed for 4 instruments. The performers are the musicians and the instruments at the same time. They act on according to the score. It's a concert. They play using their bodies and voices.
It's about singing physicalities and dancing voices. It's about physicality and voice tuning in with each other.

But it's also about pitch of movement,
... a rhythm of the thought,
... a timbre of emotion,
... a loudness of imagination,
... a melody of attention,
... a polyphony of different levels of perception,
... the musicality of the presence.

All in all it's about tuning... again and again.
And it's about particular tune of tonight.


Original video was made by Werner Sohajek / kulturvision
(www.kulturvision.at)

You can view TONIGHTS TUNE trailer also on YouTube under:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGrgPezj1iI

PREMIERE OF "TONIGHTS TUNE"

TONIGHTS TUNE will have its
premiere on Tuesday 2 of June (further performances 3 and 4 of June) at 8 p.m at WUK in Vienna.

Artistic leading: Radek Hewelt
Choreography/Performance: Gabri M. Einsiedl, Dominik Grünbühel, Radek Hewelt, Linda Samaraweerova

For more information click on the picture below to enlarge!
Or go to: www.wuk.at

"Tonights tune" in progress...

Tonight tune is a score composed for 4 instruments.
The performers are the musicians and the instruments at the same time.
They act on according to the score.
It’s a concert.
They play using their bodies and voices.
It’s about singing physicalities and dancing voices.
It’s about physicality and voice tuning in with each other.


But it is also about the pitch of movement,
…a rhythm of the thought,
…a timbre of emotion,
…a the loudness of imagination,
…a melody of attention,
…a polyphony of different levels of perception,
…the musicality of the presence.

All in all it’s about tuning… again and again.
And it’s about particular tune of tonight.

The premiere will take place in WUK on 2nd of June. Further performances: 3, 4 June

Some impressions from the process on "Tonights Tune"

Gabri:









Linda:









Dominik:









and Radek:

New production TONIGHTS TUNE starts now!

From today together with Gabri M. Einsiedl, Dominik Grünbühel and Linda Samaraweerova I start to work on the new production.
The working title is TONIGHTS TUNE.
It'll be presented at WUK (Vienna) between 2-4 June 2009.
Every some time I'm going to publish the updates from our process.

Artistic direction: Radek Hewelt
Choreography and performance: Gabri M. Einsiedl, Dominik Grünbühel, Linda Samaraweerova, Radek Hewelt

Support: Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien (MA7), WUK








TONIGHTS TUNE (working title) is going to concentrate on the relation between physicality and voice. What concerns this project in particular is a point where they both meet. It’s in the way the continuation of one of the aspects that were present in my last piece “Close-up” where in some point we connected quite abstract body forms with all sorts of verbal sounds that were related to breathing. All those sounds, together with choreography, created interesting emotional paths and tensions. In this new project I’d like to extend and enrich both: physicality and voice.

In this work we’re going to circulate around few topics:

Dance influence on the voice.
Each body can be seen as a particular music instrument. Our genetic abilities, physicality, forms we make, tensions have obviously an impact on our voice. We want to experiment with different forms and physical tasks and see how they affect and modulate the voice. Part of the material and the artistic output should come out of this research.

Voice influence on the physicality.
It’s an opposite process to the one I described above. The starting point in this case is the voice that leads to the dance. For instance singing very high tones creates very interesting physical patterns in the body that can be use as an input for dance/choreography.

Deconstruction of the material and puzzling the elements.
I’ve made once experiment while watching the movie. I watched quite emotional scene where the actor was slowly executing very physical task. Then I did it again with the sound turned off. Third time I put my own sound on it. The result was very intriguing and interesting. It changed the way of perceiving the scene. In new project I want to use similar method with the material we create. I can see it in quite a big range as the process of extracting the elements and juxtaposing them with each other in different relations. It leads to the next point that I describe below.

Abstraction and concreteness, abstraction and emotionality (Contrast).
The dance understood as making forms in time very often stays in the abstraction (or eventually brings some emotional output). The voice is much more related to concreteness and rather clear emotionality. In this work I’d like to achieve at the end a specific tension between those two. I’d like to create some kind of vibrating stream that would be open for interpretation or reading, a stream that would contain abstraction, concreteness and emotionality – and all those elements being in ongoing interaction.

Strong focus on musicality.
The artistic output of our work will be rich with different musical elements like sounds, rhythms, melodies and songs. I’d like to work with four dancers (including myself). Each of us can be considered as a different unique instrument. The aim is creating a performance that could be described as physical and musical concert.