Production Details / Press Releases
A condition of permanent change creates the presence of the invisible.
»The Reversed Alchemist: Figure 1-3« is a choreographic ritual in three parts, an invitation to an alchemical process that seeks to transform perception instead of matter. Was the original goal of alchemy, i.e. the experience of a deeper meaning, stopped by the greed for gold? Can this be compared with the greed for consumption of information in our era? Searching for an emancipatory position against the hyper accelerated information overload, the piece opens up a space for poetic reflection on the relationship between information and perception.
Ixchel Mendoza Hernández is a Mexican choreographer and performer based in Berlin. She completed her choreography and dance studies at Artez Arnheim in 2007. In 2011, she extended her practice into video making in collaboration with the choreographer Anna Weißenfels. From 2012 until 2015 she had been engaged in the MA Solo, Dance, Authorship (SoDA) at Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz (HZT) in Berlin. During that period she made explorations to provoke the audience to experience a certain kind of “images” which are not present in vision, nevertheless still present – a phenomena she called “Visual Ghost”. This phenomena became a source for her choreographic works. In her last performance “The Twofold Paradox” she attempted to play with the borders between perception, memory and imagination. It premiered in November 2018 in the frame of Open Spaces in Tanzfabrik Berlin. Recently, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández performed at the Volksbühne in the installative Performance „Coming Society“ by Susanne Kennedy. She worked together with Kat Válastur, s-h-i-f-t-s, Clement Layes, Laurie Young, Elpida Orfanidou, among others.
[Source: play bill]
TFB Nr. 1342
Cast & Credits
Concept, choreography, text and performance: Ixchel Mendoza Hernández
Dramaturgy: Matthias Mohr
Music, sound installation: Martin Lutz, Kyan Bayani
Light design-installation: Catalina Fernandez
Costume: Malena Modéer
Video: Christiane Schniebel
PR: Johannes Fellmann
Production: M.i.C.A. – Movement in Contemporary Art / Raisa Kröger, Katharina Meyer
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
Special thanks to: Elpida Orfanidou, Kyla Kegler, Tim Caldwell, Nathalie Ladermann, Cilgia Gadola, Fine, Garage.
Open Spaces
Artistic director: Ludger Orlok
Production management: Juan Harcha
Organization: Vincenz Kokot
Communication, press, editorial: Felicitas Zeeden
Technical management: Martin Pilz
Festival assistance: Dominique Tegho
The performance program of the Tanzfabrik Berlin is supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and apap – Performing Europe 2020, co-funded by Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Tanzfabrik Berlin / Wedding
Uferstr. 23
13357 Berlin
Video Documentation
The video documentation is produced on behalf of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. The purpose of this contract is to document productions in the field of contemporary dance in Berlin. The master recordings are archived by the University Library of the Berlin University of Arts. Copies of the recordings on DVD are available for viewing exclusively in the reference collections of the following archives (at media desks in these institutions):
University Library of the Berlin University of Arts
Mediathek für Tanz und Theater des Internationalen Theaterinstituts / Mime Centrum Berlin
Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT)
Ixchel Mendoza Hernández / Trailers and Video Documentations
- Ixchel Mendoza Hernández: Interview / Portrait Ixchel Mendoza Hernández (2019)
- Ixchel Mendoza Hernández: The Multiplicity of the Other (2023)
- Ixchel Mendoza Hernández: The Reversed Alchemist: Figure 4 – 6 (2021)
- Instant Feedback / Ixchel Mendoza Hernández: The Reversed Alchemist: Figure 1-3 (2019)
- Ixchel Mendoza Hernández: The Twofold Paradox (2018)
- Ixchel Mendoza Hernández: Visual Ghost (2012)