Interview about Cooperativa Performativa in Corpus

Valerie Oberleithner made an interview with me about Cooperativa Performativa (with whom I worked in December'10) on the internet magazine Corpus dedicated to the art of dance and performance. It's a part of her and Agnieszka Ryszkiewicz's project at their residency in Corpus. Project is called "Map it!". More about this project under:
http://www.corpusweb.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1538&Itemid=33

Below I publish a part of the interview. The whole interview you can view under:
http://www.corpusweb.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1538&Itemid=33&limit=1&limitstart=2


Radek Hewelt about Cooperativa Performativa


Where do they meet?

Valerie Oberleithner asked me to talk about Cooperativa Performativa. (laughs) Cooperativa Performativa is a group based in Romania. It consists of five artists from the performance and dance fields. The artists are from Bucuresti.They work in a kind of dance centre. I think it is even called dance house. They have a studio. It does not belong only to them. It belongs to the community. Cooperativa Performativa is one of the founders of this dance centre. Therefore they have the privilege to use the studio.

The internet as a virtual space is not an issue. One of their goals is to share one space, one physical space.

Who is the leader, and does everyone share his/her vision?

There is no leader! This is maybe the most important point about their working strategies. They are “the anarchists”. They do not like leaders. Furthermore they work independently from each other. This means that Cooperativa consists of five artists who work on five different projects. Also economical reasons made them work in this way: “Why do we not work on these five projects by sharing one studio? Why do we not just use each other for our own purposes?” They formulated rules how this way of cooperation could function. One rule: there is no leader, you are independent, you can always say no. You do not even have to come for the rehearsals. It is basically free and totally independent. Cooperativa Performativa is not about working for a group. It is rather using the sources a group or a collective offers. They are “the anarchists”. They do not have the goal to create something together. Everyone works on his own project, for a specific time, in a specific place.

Cooperativa Performativa reflects on its own working strategies. Sure a lot of conflicts appear. For example some would like to work with very loud music and some would like to work with silence. The task is to find solutions without leadership. What drives them to be in a studio is working on their own projects. Money reasons, too, made them decide to work in this way. Five artists using one studio at the same time is very economical. Beyond this they work with this situation. They know each other pretty well. They are old friends, colleagues.

...

More on Corpus

Links:
Official web-site of Cooperativa Performativa:
http://cooperativaperformativa.blogspot.com/
Corpus magazine:
http://www.corpusweb.net/

Teaching at TanzQuartier

All level training: Radek Hewelt

06 – 27 March
Each Saturday 17.00 – 18.30

Place your skin, muscles, bones, liquids, desires, sensations, emotions, ideas, concepts, thoughts, fantasies on a very small fire. You can experiment with quantities of ingredients. Meanwhile softly "oil" your joints. Allow a body to melt gently. When it gets warmer observe it spreading up and getting a volume. It needs time. When the whole mass reaches a good colour, don’t worry if it grows. Season it with your favourite herbs but don’t be afraid to try also the new ones. Don’t rush. When it’s getting hot and ready let the kinetic hunger take it over. Smell it, smile and let your test buds enjoy the dish. In case you’re not fully satisfied, analyze and eventually change something next time.

Radek Hewelt (PL/A) is a choreographer, dancer and performer. He was born in Poland. After accomplishing his social studies he continued his education joining a dance school of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s P.A.R.T.S in Brussels. Since 2003 he is based in Vienna. In his teaching he focuses on release technique principles. He also likes to cook.

Link: http://tqw.at/en/trainings?date=6.03.2010&e=519

Soft Cowboy at his end...

Ladies and Gentelmen... my life as an art object is coming today to an end! 81 days ago I signed the contract with myself and today at midnight my body comes back officially to its owner - the real person whose legal existance is confirmed by Birth Certificat. If you are in Vienna you're very welcome to join the last night of Soft Cowboy and Things.

More details about the show:
http://www.brut-wien.at/start.php?navid=detail&id=381
http://radekhewelt.blogspot.com/2010/02/things-in-vienna.html
http://radekhewelt.blogspot.com/2010/02/radek-hewelts-soft-cowboy-in-things.html


My rental contract:


RENT-TO-OWN CONTRACT

I. PARTIES:
This contract is entered into on 8th December 2009, by and between RADEK HEWELT as the Owner of the property rented and RADEK as the Renter.
The Owner hereby agrees to rent-to-own the real property described as A BODY.
This rental shall be for a term of 81 days, beginning 8th December 2009 and anding 26th February 2010.

II. DEFINITION OF THE PARTIES:
THE OWNER in this contract is a real person whose legal existance is confirmed by Birth Certificate.
THE RENTER is a physical and artistic image generated for a purpose of an artistic creation.

III. OBJECT OF THE RENTAL:
THE OBJECT of this rental – A BODY – is understood as a real physical body as well as widely assumed identity and personality constituting and belonging to the owner.

IV. RENTAL AGREEMENT:
In the period of contract duration the owner disdains his rights to own his property described as his body and identity. The renter has unlimited rights to despose rented object in any way necessery to fulfil the aims deriving from artistic creation. It might include also modification, transformation, rejection and destruction of an object of the rental.

Radek Hewelt's 'Soft Cowboy' in 'THINGS'

Dear friends,
I was asked by Anat Steinberg to contribute in curated by her exhibition of performances in big second hand shopping paradise Carla mittersteig in Vienna.
For this occasion I've prepared a performances called 'Soft Cowboy'. I'd feel honoured and excited to see you there!
The premiere is on Wednesday 24th February. Details below.



Soft Cowboy / Radek Hewelt

At this point in his life, Radek Hewelt has very little material property and even less personal attachments towards it. As a danced his most important possession is his body. Especially for this event, Radek Hewelt decided to rent his body + soul for artistic purposes. He signed a legal rental contract, and for a period of 81 days he abandoned the ownership of his property (the body + soul mentioned above). He gave the renter (the artistic purpose) the full rights to dispose of the ‘body + soul’ in any way necessary, including its modification (to create a new image), destruction of ‘real self’ and experimenting with exterior guidelines for interiors. In the performance (i.e. the artistic purpose) he will present his new creation.



‘THINGS’

24,25,26 February at 19:00
performances take place at Carla mittersteig,
Mittersteig 10, 1050 Vienna

‘THINGS’ is an exhibition for performances. It reflects upon the relationship between constructing identity and owning property; who we think we are in relation to the things we have.. or should probably get some day.. the people we should be.. the possibilities .. we should have had .. by now..

The artists Otobong Nkanga, Hans Bryssinck and Radek Hewelt are invited to respond with new performance works; from Egyptian mummies (buried with their valuables) through obsessive restitution wars to brand fetishes or the economical / emotional process of buying a house.. The artists will explore the emotional link connecting property owned and/or desired, and identity presentation.

To accentuate the economical aspect of the theme, ‘THINGS’ is happening in a second-hand furniture shop (Carla mittersteig, Mittersteig 10, Wien), which will be open for shopping during the show.

Curated and orchestrated by Anat Stainberg. With contributions from the artists: Hans Bryssinck, Performance. Yasmina Haddad, styling. Radek Hewelt, Performance. Erwin Jans, dramaturgy. Jan Maertens, light. Otobong Nkanga, Performance. Martin Siewert, music. and Ina Ivanceanu, production.

‘THINGS’ is a co-production of Anat Stainberg / ‘Mediated Meetings’ and brut Wien, and is kindly supported by stadt Wien Kultur and the BMU:KK Austria.

THINGS in Vienna

Curated and orchestrated by Anat Steinberg.

With contributions from the artists:

Hans Bryssinck, Performance
Yasmina Haddad, styling
Radek Hewelt, Performance
Erwin Jans, dramaturgy
Jan Maertens, light
Otobong Nkanga, Performance
Martin Siewert, music

‘THINGS’ is a site specific performance. It reflects upon the relationship between identity construction and property. Focusing on the gap between ‘wanting’ and ‘getting’; who we think we are in relation to the things we have.. or should probably get some day.. the people we should be.. the possibilities .. we should have had by now..

'THINGS' is happening in the Carla mittersteig, a second-hand furniture warehouse in Vienna. The Carla Mittersteig is mainly (according to the people who run it) a social project for employment (by Caretas). But it is chosen for the performance because of its arbitrary and sustained collection of ‘things with history and possible future’, reviving many forgotten stories. Site-specific performances are created in relation to a specific location and exist only there. This specific medium offers the viewers ‘pre knowledge’ to start with, which adds layers of information to the reading of the performance. And since a site (in this case a second hand public shop) is real and has a daily function, the performance gets to play in the range between reality and fiction in a fascinating way. To accentuate the economical aspect of the theme the shop will be open for shopping during the show.



Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) an English philosopher and legal theorist developed legislation theory dealing with owned property in the early ninteenth century. He was the first to address property’s important emotional components in his theories, revealing that property represented not only the object or item possessed, but indicated a more intangible relationship between the owner and what was owned.
‘Property is nothing but a basis of expectation; the expectation of deriving certain advantages from a thing which we are said to possess [. . .]. It is not material, it is metaphysical; it is a mere conception of the mind.’

To continue this thought it is interesting to look at the way people (in western cultures) develop relationship with the things they have; the how people belong to their property, how property defines people, puts them in a specific social status, how people live in the promise of the things they potentially should get some day .. Further more Bentham reminds, that it is law alone that enables property to exist, and that from this law people draw a certain expectation also towards future profit or an anticipated inheritance.
The time it takes until the promise has been realized is a very fruitful one for the creation of fantasies, because all you can do is plan, construct an identity.

THINGS, is a research into the way our imaginary and real potentialities code the way of our reality construction. The way fantasy is processed in a brain and re-arranged to an identity with reference to our physical, social and cultural surroundings. The performance will explore the function of property in sparking both individual and collective strategies, and propose ways for these stored ideas to be ‘back-projected’ to the space that hosts them - a second-hand furniture warehouse.



Three artists are invited to participate in this performance; each is coming from different culture and artistic background. All were personally and artistically challenged by the suggestion to explore the link between property and identity; they are asked to look at the ways in which matter influences spirit and contribute their own input, their own ‘take’ on things.

The artists will be provided with research material collected by Anat Stainberg from which they could choose what to focus on. From Egyptian mummies (buried with their valuables) through obsessive restitution wars to brand fetish or the economical / emotional process of buying a house. The artists are asked to create scenes in varies media considering the aspect of their choice.

‘THINGS’ is a co-produced by brut Wien and is kindly supported by stadt Wien Kultur and the BMU:KK Austria.

"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

Cooperativa Performativa in TanzQuartier

no territorialization no hierarchy no competition no property or: open source practices for diminish the ego

With: Maria Baroncea (RO), Magdalena Chowaniec (A), Adriana Cubides (A), Florin Flueras (RO), Fanni Futterknecht (A), Eduard Gabia (RO), Claire Granier (A), Radek Hewelt (A), Thomas Kasebacher (A), Alexandra Pirici (RO) and Iuliana Stoianescu (RO).









Cooperative Performativa is a collective that brings together the Romanian artists Maria Baroncea, Florin Flueras, Eduard Gabia, Alexandra Pirici and Iuliana Stoianescu. Starting from the basic idea of open source, they investigate the (power) relationship of art insti-tutions and artists, claims to ownership and copyright interests in one’s own work, the necessity of guidance and direction in a group as well as the product-oriented forms of collaboration, which are based on agreement, negotiation and compromises. The emphasis of their project is the process itself, which – on a largely grassroots democratic basis – creates heterotopias, differences and commonalities in one’s own as well as others’ artistic creation, connected with the attempt not to judge them but precisely to highlight their diversity.







During a one-week encounter with a group of artists working in Vienna, the discursive strategies developed by Cooperativa Performativa will be challenged and tested.










The results of this open working process will be presented on 16 December and are at the same time the curtain-raiser and framework for the discussion of the restructured residency programme that the Tanzquartier Wien together with KulturKontakt Austria and other partners will be continuing in the 2009/10 season.









Links:
http://cooperativaperformativa.blogspot.com/