Zentrum Paul Klee Bern Founded by Maurice E. and Martha Müller and the heirs of Paul Klee
Theater & dance 08.09.2016 – 01.10.2016

Felix Klee Saal

Spaces of movement project III: Dance company inFlux

THU | 08—29/09/16 | 10am—5pm

Closing performance
SAT | 01 October 2016 | 2pm

Under gravity’s spell

Throughout his life, Paul Klee showed great interest in music and contemporary dance. Among the issues he engaged with through the medium of dance was gravity: the fact that human beings, like all entities and all matter, are ‘earthbound’. This, Klee noted to his regret, curtailed the forms of movement available to man; he championed saltation and skipping as a means to triumph over gravity’s power. With a view to Klee’s musings, the dance company inFlux will research this leitmotiv of his work in situ: the oscillation between gravity and weightlessness that engenders movement. 

Here, the (stage) floor, often taken for granted by dancers, is turned into a place of attraction and play and becomes a symbol of gravity itself. The dancers grapple with it, as it were: paradoxically, they emphasize their ‘earthbound’ status by constantly giving in to the desire to become weightless, using their entire bodies in the process. They glide, roll and fly across the floor, jump off it and sink into it. Time and again, their bodies are catapulted aloft and achieve momentary weightlessness at the apex of their trajectory. Intermittently, the dancing body remains ‘rooted’ to the ground with one or both feet, only the head striving upwards – ‘standing in spite of all the opportunities to fall’, as Klee characterized humanity’s fate in the bondage of gravity. 

Anything that is given momentum will invariably oscillate between gravity and weightlessness. Gravity’s force is thus rendered concrete and tangible, both visually and physically. Various kinds of twists and turns will be part of this choreographic research project conducted in the medium of dance, along with choreographed levitation and dance sections performed on the floor. 

Music as a counterweight 
Melody and rhythm co-determine this choreographic research project. The music, played live (bass German flute), evokes the same themes and emotions as the dancers. It sinks down into the depths and soars to great heights. Moreover, it serves as a kind of counterweight to the dance. The German flute shares its timbre and lends the dance performance an additional dimension.

Lucía Baumgartner is a choreographer and the artistic director of the dance company inFlux. She graduated from London Contemporary Dance School with a Master’s in choreography in 1998, consistently continued her training in various theatre and dance styles as well as holistic forms of body training. She shapes her understanding of dance in a constant engagement with music and architecture. She has won several awards for her work as a choreographer and is a valued instructor both in Switzerland and abroad. Lucía’s practice marries her ‘southern’ temperament with ‘Swiss’ sobriety. 

Jonas Furrer graduated from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (piano) and Codarts Rotterdam (dance). After five years of engagements in various well-established dance companies all across Europe, he can now look back on three years as a freelance dancer in several Swiss ensembles. He has been working with inFlux and Lucía Baumgartner since 2015. Jonas is also a highly sought-after instructor and choreographer.

Isabel Lerchmüller (German flute) is a freelance professional musician. She graduated from the Bern University of the Arts (HKB) and the Musik Akademie Basel. In addition to her activities as a member of various orchestras and chamber music ensembles, she works as a flute instructor. At the centre of Isabel’s artistic practice are cross-genre, site-specific productions. She pursues and realizes such productions, for instance, with the collective rueckenlage, of which she is the founder and which specializes in (audiovisual) concerts for supine audiences. 

Tekeal Riley has been a member of the dance company inFlux since 1999. She also participated in productions by Running Out (Michael Schulz / Kathryn Eggert), co.ainsi.danse (Susanne Müller), Karin Hermes, and Cie Willi Dorner. Tekeal teaches contemporary dance in Bern and offers bodywork services according to the Trager Method. She currently cooperates with the photographer Martin Bichsel on the project “Fremde Kontakt” (exhibition in November 2016).

www.influxdance.com

Three choreographic projects will tie into the exibition’s topic – movement – in the form of direct encounters with the visitors and the works on display. During the project’s runtime in February, April and September 2016, the choreographed engagement with this thematic focus will be a regular fixture in the exhibition.

Dancers and choreographers develop ideas and processes in the actual exhibition space, enabling a loose and playful involvement with the exhibition’s topics and works and/or the visitors. The project does not exclusively aim at a ‘performance result’, but at a performative engagement on an equal footing with the public exhibition that forms its context. On four days per project phase, the artists will work in the exhibition space during opening hours, offering our visitors an immediate and unfamiliar look at their artistic practice. Each project phase will conclude with a choreographed performance in the exhibition space. Furthermore, the entire process will be documented on film and then shown in the exhibition so as to render visible the traces of this process.