An integral part of the process was a month-long dérive through the streets of Berlin whereby we strove towards removing the constraints and procedures of production. This is asking how long can we pursue not knowing, and how the conscious not-knowing transforms our ontological status. This is a meditation on not making decisions, having no script, and inhabiting the found conditions. This is devoting time to not producing, to freeing ourselves from the capitalist imperative (at least for a moment) to see what can emerge. It might be that there is no back door (how do you say otherwise, emergency exit?) and that production is an inherent human default. What qualities emerge when we adhere to a strict regime of openness? In Towards Another Miraculous, we investigate this tenuous terrain, somewhere between archaeologists and choreographers, mere reporters and creators, doers by fate and will, yet products of circumstance. The miraculous is not far away. Bas Jan Ader took to the void of the open sea to find it, but maybe it was all the time much closer, less tragic, maybe even in the streets of his own Kiez. There might be another way. No, there is another way, and this is stirring the dust and watching it settle. This is moving towards another miraculous.
(Frank Willens and Maria Francesca Scaroni)

Since coming to Berlin in 2003, Frank Willens has worked extensively with Meg Stuart (Replacement, Do Animals Cry), Laurent Chétouane (Bildbeschreibung, Tanzstück 2), and Tino Sehgal (Kiss, Untitled, This Variation, Yet Untitled, This Situation, etc…). He’s also realized projects with u.a. Peter Stamer, Esther Struck (Schauspiel Köln), Wilhelm Groener, Nico and the Navigators, and Tanzinitiave Hamburg as well as presenting his own pieces in the spaces between. Towards Another Miraculous is a culmination of a long friendship and professional relationship with Maria Francesca Scaroni.

From Italian TV dance productions to release-based and post-modern dance techniques, from contactimprovisation to literature studies and theoretical engagement, Maria F. Scaroni is moving through the complex network of learning and making dancessince 1996. Scaroni’s works focus on the process of collaboration, play with durational experiences and are featured by a crossbreeding between performance, choreography and installation. She created works with Jess Curtis, Vania Rovisco (AADK), Frank Willens and is currently performing works created with Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, Tino Sehgal and Jeremy Wade. Maria teaches in Berlin’s University HZT and is actively involved in other independent training programs (P.O.R.C.H. and Smash) where she is developing methodologies focusing on the body as material. She holds a Masters degree in Italian Modern Literature, with a focus on Media and Communication and a thesis on education and dance.

Shane Anderson writes poetry/fiction and translates contemporary German poetry. His books include “Études des Gottnarrenmaschinen” (Broken Dimanche Press) and “STALL” (KTBAWC, co-written with Elvia Wilk). Other poems and translations are or will be in in Edit, 6×6, VLAK, Telephone, Asymptote and the playbill for Matthew Barney’s “River of Fundament”. He is a 2013 Triple Canopy Grant recipient for his forthcoming translation of Ulf Stolterfoht’s “Ammengespräche”.

After a 20-year dance career Dominique Pollet needed a change of reality. Becoming a fisherman made sense but choosing to explore the horizon of the theatre even more. For the past 4 years Dominique Pollet has been designing mainly for dance and theatre: “Venn” from Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and “Close your eyes and add a touch of nothing” from Ami Garmon, to name a few.

Anne-Sophie Malmberg studied Stage Design and Visual Communication at the Royal Danish Design Academy. She has worked with Jeremy Wade (Church of Beer- Roskilde Festival), Hetna Rigitze Bruun (Literatur Haus-Kopenhagen), and Frank Willens (Schweigstück-Tanztage 2011). She has also collaborated with the English band The Tiger Lillies and produced a book of illustrations based on the lyrics of their music. She teaches illustration at the Royal Danish Design Academy and lives and works in Berlin since 2006.

If you ask Nomad what his profession or mission in life is, he answers: “Freedom”. Nomad is the blueprint of the contemporary Urban Artist. Educated and inspired by the Skateboarding, Hardcore Punk, Graffity, HipHop and Rave Countercultures of the 80’s, his visiual imprint on the early Berlin Streetartscene was immense. His Thousands of freestyle Roadside trash paintings and markerdrawings on Berlins streets, earned him countless admirers and collectors and made his art visible all over the world – from Blogs and books to the homes of Hollywood Stars. His style – created by his lifestyle as a a vagabond – is always evolving and incorporates “the necessary” – as he proclaims to use whatever style or material is available to maximize the focus on the pleasure of the creation. This can be a Renaissance inspired canvass in his studio, a markerscribble on a doorway or trashcan, a grafittybombing on the wall of a huge dam or a sculpture made out of some tumbleweeds in the desert. If Basquiat and Haring had had a Bastard Child, Nomad would be on his Facebooks friendslist. If he’s not busy with his creative work, NOMAD works as a Judge or Scholar for international Design Projects.