FUSE#4

ELEMENT #5 Social Choreography
Opening
Artist Lecture-
Presentation:
deufert&plischke
The topic of today’s lecture is social choreography, which was also the topic
of our stay and all the work that we did here was was connected to that.
So we want to talk about why we understand dance and theatre more as a
social rather than purely artistic situation, and why we think the theatre is a
space that invites the audience to take part in all of the actions that are done
on stage. So we’re investigating dance in its ethical, and aesthetic and social
dimension.
All over the world, there is a certain theatre architecture where the stage
is in front and the audience is somewhere [facing the stage], and the light is
switched off when an action is taking place [on stage]. And this comes from
an occidental theatre practice… and theatres of this form are quite dominant,
even though in many cultures this situation does not play a role, and only a
few people know that this form is only 100-150 years old - in the 19th century
it came about as an educational tool to bring people’s focus to the stage.
But before that the theatre was quite messy - people ate, drank, fucked - so
this separation of audience and action is a modern phenomenon, and our
works work severely against this structure.
So we decided to speak about two works. And something Kattrin alluded
to earlier which I will say more on is this idea of heritage, which the
project we brought here is also speaks about. We switch the lights off in the
theatre and the audience comes together with the idea of the nation at the
same time; we want to concentrate the attention of the people to one thing.
And we see today so many artists trying to get away from [the stage] and
discover the museum, which may also have a problematic development, but
the people’s attention is not controlled. So there is something like a control
obsession which is part of the heritage of theatre, and is also inherited in
methods of choreography.
The Myth of Arachne - Emergence Room, Spinnen
In Europe, the idea of theatre, beauty, self-presentation, is closely tied to the
Greek myth of Orpheus who sang beautifully to get his Eurydice out of the underworld.
So the origins of art was kind of sticking to this figure in European
mythology, and we wanted to move away from him and raise another figure,
and that is Arachne, a woman.
The story is that Arachne comes from a single parent family - her mother
died - and the father was a dyer. So she was always around handicrafts, and
in the workshop. She was also a fantastic weaver, and the news spread to the
goddess Athena, who was the goddess of craft. And when she asked where
did Arachne learn her skills from, and word was that she was an autodidact,
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