BERMUDA beschäftigt sich mit aktueller Wahrheitsbildung. Der Umgang mit Informationen fordert zunehmend Kompetenzen und eigene Analysen. Fake News und manipulierte Netzwerke übermitteln einen nicht endenden Strom an scheinbaren Wahrheiten und Zusammenhängen. Was ist schon mit Sicherheit kein Fake? Wäre es nicht hilfreicher, wenn es einen Punkt gäbe, der das Chaos zusammenhält?
F. Wiesel nähern sich dem Bermudadreieck: Gefäß aller abhanden gekommenen Objekte der Vergangenheit, Jetztzeit und Zukunft. Der Punkt an dem Berichterstattung aufhört, Karten enden und der Mythos beginnt. Sie arbeiten im Sammelbecken des Verschwundenen. Drucken, konstruieren, bauen Schiffsmodelle und Inselgruppen. Und dann ist es auf einmal ganz echt da: Im Zentrum aller Vorfälle, am Grunde des Meeresboden, in einem geheimen Raum: Das Reptilienwesen. Es betritt den Bühnenraum und spannt ein eigenes Netzwerk aus Sinn- Zusammenhängen.
Ein postfaktisches Märchen im Zeitalter eines hysterischen Wahrheitsbegriffs breitet sich aus. In minutiöser Detailverliebtheit und mit schrägen Humor untersucht BERMUDA Verschwörungstheorien und Mythenbildung als Erzählform der Gegenwart.
In my Bachelor Project as well as in my Thesis I have dealt with the topic of space. Space is a complex subject and allowed me to research on several levels and from different perspectives. For this, a linking of theory and practice makes sense, because the examination of spatial theories enriches my artistic implementation of the topic. The dance design in turn influences the theoretical knowledge. This interactive connection of knowledge and experience helps me to deal with the topic comprehensively. Putting theory and practice into context is important to me for another reason: it challenges me to move in a time-space where past and present are interconnected. The theories were developed in the past, the dance interpretation is in the present, because the body is in the now.
For the practical work I developed a solo choreography and record it in a film. This represents reality and absurdity of different spaces. The filmic realization takes place in a corridor with doors, which each lead to different rooms. There are four very different rooms. The absurdity is shown in the fact that the rooms that are behind the doors cannot be there in reality. The film also plays with distance, time, light, perception, perspective and movement.
I limited myself to Rudolf Laban's theory of space, William Forsythe's Improvisation Technologies and the description and reflection of my solo choreography.
‘EXHAUSTED’ presents a collection of micro aggressions that the artist has encountered throughout their life. In their attempt to unveil a space of vulnerability, the artist chose to focus on personal lived experience, however they are aware of their very specific socio-political situation as not being the most marginalised. The artwork aims to showcase how life journeys varying from what is considered the norm, are often invalidated or ignored. Furthermore, the artist opens up about their emotions as a way of reflecting upon the consequences such aggressions can cause an individual.
My Bachelor project is called inbetween. It is a short video based on a quote by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin: “When you dance you should not be looking at your own reflection, you should be looking at the world.” I aim to explore dancers’ relationships with the mirror and the potential effects it has on us. In the video, I am dancing outside, filmed mainly through the reflection of a mirror - creating an illusion of being somewhere in between reality and reflection.
I created my Bachelor project parallel to my thesis in fact both have oppositions and human duality as their subject. I analyzed the role of oppositions in the world of dance from a technical and personal point of view and reported the knowledge gained in my project. In the video I dance together with another dancer who has a quality of movement opposite to mine to emphasize the duality and I decided to film in two completely opposite scenarios, in the middle of nature and in an industrial area, using lighting that would accentuate the contrast. Oppositions in performances are elements that avoid monotony and constitute the dynamics of the show.
«Dance of the opposites» is a short movie that portraits the natural balance that is always naturally established in the universe. It’s a representation of the freedom we can find in letting go of things we cannot control, and it shows that finding inspiration in nature can lead to freedom, mindfulness and harmony in life.
Opposites create balance, one doesn’t have meaning without the other, like shadow doesn’t exist without light.
My graduate project is titled "The Courage to Change" and its main purpose is to go against all sorts of psychological bullying that leads the most sensitive people to not believe in themselves, and therefore have more difficulty understanding their role in the world. So the themes I deal with are the need for self-expression and the acceptance of our body and mind, topics that are similar in my thesis.
When I decided to devise a small film to represent this topical, I thought a lot about what images the outside audience might remember in order for my work to serve something greater. In this film I portray myself as the embodiment of any twenty-one year old boy, living a silent day lost in thought, until he looks in front of the mirror and sees imprinted on himself all the words that other people have said with the goal of hurting him. Through this video narration I wrote a monologue and recorded my voice so that the viewer would be guided by my words to better understand the meaning of what he would have seen, and thus metabolize it.
Towards the middle of the film there is a transition that completely reverses the scenario, at that moment I represent another topic taken from my thesis and of personal interest: Boylesque, which is a discipline that was born after the evolution of dance, and obviously takes its origin from Burlesque but taking as protagonist the male gender. This choice was purely subjective and certainly daring because of the costumes and images that were recorded, but my goal was to leave an imprint with a dance style that is not often mentioned because it is considered a niche. "The courage to change" is a hymn to mutual respect and support between human beings, and also a voice of comfort for all the people who have suffered like me who need to feel less alone. In this film I lay bare my body, my soul and my thoughts that are expressed by movements, images and words and I hope that the audience will be able to perceive it too. I wanted to give my university career a respectful closure, dealing with human reflections and at the same time with what as brought me this far: Dance.
Ever since I was a little girl I loved dresses and costumes. The two reasons for that was the ability to make the movement visible in space and on the other hand the transformation of your own movement adjusting to the quality of the fabric. I was intrigued by the idea that even if something is still, like in a picture, we can still see the movement in it. To bring the movement to live I wanted to work with different fabrics and dresses. While at the same time, the fabric would inspirate our movement.
The beauty about fabric, is that it gives you the ability to see air and how it is moved. As once a choreographer said “Dance is moving air”. And not only does it make the movement visible in space, it also enlargers the movement. It becomes an extension of the body. And when the movement of the dancer is finished, the fabric acts like a little time machine, continuing the movement for a second longer, reminding us of the movement, before it becomes part of a memory.
On the other hand, fabric inspires us to move in certain ways. Depending on the quality and even colour it can inspire different kinds of movement. Like a little girl who starts twirling when she wears a wide skirt, so do we in dance.
For a long time, the women in art existed only as a model or as a muse. She existed only as a painting or as a sculpture. She was only a body, a shell and the inspiration for the man to help his creative drive. At the same time, the gender relations were so engraved, that the woman as an artist did not exist.
This reduction to the body, was what I played with in the process of my project. But not only the woman in the role of a muse accompanied me as an inspiration. Also the detachment from the sole existence as a contentless body and the way to the self-realisation as an artist was part of my movement research.
My Bachelor Project is a short film called “Behind the curtain.” It’s mostly about the daily life of a ZHdK contemporary dance student. The second years of the Bachelor program were very kind to share their personal stories. You also see them in rehearsals, ballet training and improvisation. My intension for this project was for the audience to see the process and hard work of a dancer. Not only watching the performance on stage but also getting to know the dancers on a more personal level.