Author Archives: Esther

Meg Stuart

Meg Stuart is a choreographer, director and dancer who lives and works in Berlin and Brussels.

With her company, Damaged Goods, founded in 1994, she has created over thirty productions, ranging from solos and duets such as Blessed (2007) and Hunter (2014) to large-scale choreographies such as VIOLET (2011) and CASCADE (2021), video works, site-specific creations like Projecting [Space[ (2017-2019), and improvisation projects such as City Lights (2016).

Stuart’s work moves freely between the genres of dance, theater and visual arts, driven by an ongoing dialogue with artists from different disciplines. Through fictions and shifting narrative layers, she explores dance as a source of healing and a way to transform the social fabric. Improvisation is an important part of Stuart’s practice, as a strategy to move from physical and emotional states or the memory of them. She passes down her knowledge through regular workshops and master classes in- and outside of the studio.

Meg Stuart received several awards in recognition of her oeuvre, among which the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Biennale di Venezia in 2018.

Katema

Choreography: Lucinda Childs 
Re-staging: Ty Boomershine

Lighting Design: Martin Beeretz
Sound: Mattef Kuhlmey
Costume: Sophia Piepenbrock-Saitz
Cast: Ty Boomershine

“I felt that I needed to step outside of the world of objects and materials. I wanted to get back to movement, to simple movement ideas, without depending so much on the manipulation of objects and materials.” (Lucinda Childs).

In establishing the foundations for her mature and original style in the dances from the 1970s, Childs focused on developing choreography that stood on its own terms: movement in time and space devised within mathematically derived structures, with no other elements to distract, embellish, overwhelm, or otherwise demand attention. Hypnotic in the insistence of its repetition along the linear path of a long diagonal, Katema encompasses simple walking patterns, interwoven with turns and half-turns of remarkable precision. 40 years after its premiere in Amsterdam, the piece is now re-staged by Ty Boomershine who has been the Artistic Assistant for Lucinda Childs since 2007 and is a member of the Dance On Ensemble.

Premiere 12th March 1978, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Premiere Re-staging  1st March 2018, HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin

Produced for the DANCE ON Festival with support from Hauptstadtkulturfonds.

 

Elephant

Concept/Direction: Rabih Mroué
In artistic collaboration with Ty Boomershine and Jone San Martin

Cast: Ty Boomershine, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta
Lighting Design 2019: Patrick Lauckner, Tanja Rühl
Lighting Desing: Arno Truschinski
Sound: Mattef Kuhlmey
Costume: Sophia Piepenbrock-Saitz

Elephant oscillates between a sense of isolation and a yearning for human connection. Two bodies move in labyrinth patterns, trying to reach each other in vain. Jumping backwards and forwards in time, they find themselves searching for moments of togetherness while at the same time experiencing the inevitability of loneliness.

Premiere: 28 February 2018, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2)

Production: Dance On/DIEHL+RITTER
Co-Production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer

Produced for the DANCE ON Festival with support from Hauptstadtkulturfonds.