Lay Me Low is a garden performance which explores the pleasures of de/growth and eternal rest at the intersection of life and death. It juxtaposes the drive towards re/production of skill, knowledge and life itself with a fantasy of abundance beyond the logic of achievement and commodification.

Excerpts from Henry Purcell’s 17th century opera Dido and Aeneas appear in the performance as an invitation to play, closeness and prolonged rest. Nature and nurture are part of this equation. So is pleasure, pain and the pleasure of pain. Can I rest my head on your heart when it hurts too much? Can this rest be for ever?

ANIA NOWAK’S choreographic practice approaches vulnerability and desire as ways towards reimagining what bodies and language can and cannot do. She develops formats such as live and video performance, installation and text. In her practice Nowak engages with bodies in their nonlinear feeling and thinking capacity to tackle the difficulties of companionship and care in times of a perpetual crisis. Nowak’s work attempts to reimagine the notions of disorder, pleasure, disease, intimacy, pain, sexuality, class and accessibility as sites of binary free living. She collaborates with alternative educational programs in Eastern Europe, such as Kem School in Warsaw and the School of Kindness in Sofia. Her works were presented at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlinische Galerie, Akademie der Künste and Sophiensæle in Berlin; Nowy Teatr Warsaw, La Casa Encendida Madrid, the Baltic Triennial at CAC Vilnius, Q21 Vienna and M HKA Antwerp a.o. Nowak lives and works in Berlin.
anianowakanianowak.com

JESS ASZODI is an artist, researcher, educator and performer. Jess’ work crosses between opera, experimental music, improvisation, com- position, and music theatre. Her favourite repertoire occupies a deep range and full gambit of colours like Berio’s Folksongs, Ligeti’s Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedűvel or Boulez‘ Le Marteau sans maître. She has performed as a soloist with opera houses and ensembles around the world including the London Sinfonietta, Wiener Volksoper, Nederlands Reisoper, Hamburg Staatsoper, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, ICE, Pinchgut Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera and the San Diego and Chicago Symphony Orchestras (chamber series). Jess also holds a Doctorate from the Queensland Conservatorium, and continues an artistic research and teaching practice focused on the materiality and politics of embodiment practices in the creation of new vocal performance. She has written articles for several books and journals and teaches workshops on the bodily as well as theoretical applications of her research.

JUSTYNA STASIOWSKA does theory through sound. Working in the field of sonic narration she focuses on notions of dramaturgy and design in different disciplines. Writes text and makes audio papers about performativity of sound perception. Creates installations and also works with choreographers, directors in fields of dance, theater and film creating fakescapes in order to think what is affective force of sound in specific medium.

[Source: play bill]

TFB Nr. 1773