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Recording: 2020-02-21 , Sophiensæle (Video © Walter Bickmann)

Eva Meyer-Keller

LIVING MATTERS

Sophiensæle

Production Details / Press Releases

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CELL BIOLOGY, every living growth is based on the process of mitosis: In five phases, it choreographs the movements of hundreds of proteins in nuclear and cell division. The smallest deviations lead to the dramatic distinction between regulated renewal and malignant proliferation, even in the laboratory.

In LIVING MATTERS organic and inorganic bodies and substances meet and react with each other. Instead of the order of things, the ordering of things comes to the fore: ‚life’ as a biological principle that only takes shape as a result of schematic processes of marking and classifying under the microscope, overlaps with life as a confusing, obscure or even: lived overload.

I.
we might be aware that we are in front of something without being able to name it. und wieder versammeln sie sich um die ache kreisförmige schale aus glas. something is the case. a thing is so and so. ein spiegel aus wasser. ein loch im gesichtsfeld.

II.
in science you deal with a lot of colorless liquids and transparent material. you make things visible and you make things not visible. there is a connection. rot zu grün, dicht zu rund, flüssig zu watte. your cells continuously die. man versteht etwas nur, wenn man es auch bauen kann.

III.
fuck. this hurts. so war das nicht geplant. to be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. jetzt nicht persönlich werden. the proof of the pudding is in the eating. der rote faden ist auch nur ein marker.

IV.
leben ist ein konzept. it’s very technical but i like it. das ist in der anderen kiste. the one who is lying has after all thought the truth. eine wucherung ist ein gewebe, das sich selbst webt. theoretically they all agree that the notion of truth is highly problematic.

V.
the truth is, we are not in control. kontrolle an und für sich genommen ist wissen. i’m happy that we’re all here together. vielleicht machen wir all das hier einfach nur, um uns um einander zu kümmern. as the case may be. die fähigkeit zu lügen und die fähigkeit zu handeln sind miteinander verknüpft. sie verdanken ihre existenz derselben quelle: der imagination.

VI.
unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us. it marks us. but what we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.

VII.
a fungus is a little different than a cow. and a cow is a bit more similar to a human than a human to a plant. klarheit und schärfe im bild sind nicht dasselbe. this all seemed to make so much sense once. und jetzt?
degrade. bind. attach. condense. travel. extend. reform. separate.

VIII.
in all. cases. it was just. nothing special. or maybe nothing. or maybe something in between. in all the possible cases and there were so many. in all the possible and impossible cases. in all the possible …

TAMARA SAPHIR studied dance and theatre in Buenos Aires and Paris, where she also gained a Master degree in Philosophy. She has lived in Berlin since 2009 and works as a performer and dramaturge for companies such as Constanza Macras/Dorkypark, Ariel Efraim Ashbel and Friends, Juli Reinartz, Santiago Blaum and Dirk Cieslak/Lubricat. She founded the performance collective TnT with her sister Tatiana Saphir. She also worked as a choreographic advisor for theatre projects with, among others, the Junges DT and Showcase Beat Le Mot.

ANNEGRET SCHALKE lives in Berlin and works as a dancer, choreographer and lighting designer. After a mathematics degree, she studied Dance, Context and Choreography at the HZT Berlin. Alongside her work as choreographer and dancer (Sheena McGrandles, Heiner Goebbels, Kat V lastur, Rose Beermann, Julian Weber etc.), she is a lighting designer for dance and performance productions (Enrico Ticconi und Ginevra Panzetti, Angela Schubot, Jared Gradinger, Robert Steijn, Simon Mayer and Lea Moro).

AGATA SINIARSKA makes works within formats of performances, events, practices, lectures and videos. She is interested in knowledge that explores various media, protocols and strategies of its own production while not applying hierarchy. Siniarska is a founding member of fxtrouble (formerly female trouble), a collective revolving around identity, body, feminisms, pleasure, affirmation and love, as well as a co-founder of Pinpoint TV, an artistic research project in the form of an internet TV programme. Her present project is a research around forensic choreography and embodied archives.

EVA MEYER-KELLER works at the interface of performance and visual art and is marked by a constructive disregard for the imposition of any boundary between these fields. Objects from everyday life perform in her work beside human bodies—things that she finds at home, in the supermarket or the tool shed. This choreographed constructive tinkering lends her work and obsessive, domestic aesthetic.
Meyer-Keller often develops projects in collaboration with other artists, such as Uta Eisenreich, Sybille Müller and Kate McIntosh. In 2018-19 she was the first choreographer to receive the Danish research grant RESA—Residency for Exchange and Sustainability in the Arts. She has been engaged in a trilogy of models, procedures and concepts from the natural sciences since 2017 (Some Significance, 2017; Living Matters, 2019). A 3 edition, 7 part artists book in conjunction with this series called LM:M-M-A-E will be published with Ilya Noé as the co-author.
Her many independent works include the performances Death is Certain (2002-present, performed in more than 200 venues around the world), Pulling Strings (KunstenFestivaldesArts, Brussels, 2013), the installations Volksballons (2004, Palast der Republik, 2013 Centre Pompidou-Metz) and Handmade (2009, Palais de Tokyo Paris). She has worked with Baktruppen, Jérôme Bel, Juan Dominguez, Christine De Smedt/ les Ballets C de la B (9×9), Agnes Meyer-Brandis and W.I.S.P. (Women in Swedish Performance Art).
evamk.de

[Source: play bill]

TFB Nr. 1429

Cast & Credits

CONCEPT, PERFORMANCE: Eva Meyer-Keller
CO-CREATION, PERFORMANCE: Tamara Saphir, Annegret Schalke, Agata Siniarska
MUSIC: Rico Lee
CO-DRAMATURG: Constanze Schellow
SEARCH PARTNER: Ilya Noé
COSTUME, PROPS: Sara Wendt
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: Simone Reber and research team
LIGHT: Annegret Schalke
TECHNICAL DIRECTION: Björn Stegmann
ASSISTANCE: Emilia Schlosser, Janine Iten
PRODUCTION: Ann-Christin Görtz, Maxi Menja Lehmann
A production by Eva Meyer-Keller in co-production with SOPHIENSÆLE and PACT Zollverein.
Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund.
Supported by Kunstencentrum BUDA and Simone Reber / Reber Lab.

Sophiensæle

Sophienstraße 18
10178 Berlin

sophiensaele.com
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Video Documentation

The video documentation is produced on behalf of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. 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)

Eva Meyer-Keller / Trailers and Video Documentations

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