Production Details / Press Releases
At the beginning of SOLO FOR LEA, performer Lea Moro enters the rectangular black space that seemingly floats above the ground. She performs series of simple, repeating gestures with her arms above and around herself, as if describing invisible lines and shapes in this space around her body. Soon those lines become visible, inscribed on her body, reshaping it, drawing it anew, the body itself will be reclaimed, reconstituted.
Insisting on this reshaping/reconstitution as a prime choreographic principle connects the experience of being in the theatre with that of witnessing a work of fine art. It is an accentuation of the drawing characteristic of the body image: the body itself becomes blurred in our eyes and we enter into some imaginary space which includes the soloist, space around her, and audience as well.
During the performance we witness the creation of shapes, contours and gestures, revealing themselves, tending towards figuration and appearances, reaching to the final image. In their perpetual quality the movements remain extremely precise, minimalistic and sharp throughout their reiterations, creating an image of a constantly vivid body, organ-like, which breathes, convulses, just doesn’t want to stop creating new ambiguities.
The performer’s body as an organ, perceived as a space, is a continuous subject in the work of Isabelle Schad. This time the performer’s body appears as a stage: but for whose theatre? Which drama?
We cannot fix the schema of this newly organised body. It is always durational in that it moves, works, trembles, resonates, and never ceases to produce a flow of associations. The viewers’ experience of this could be described as being in the terrain of semiotic ambiguities. Limbs, breasts, face, hair and skin turn on differences in signification, and movements are organised around plans incorporating inner states as processes to effect changes in meaning. These changes in meaning structure our experience.
To externalise the internal in Solo for Lea, the invisible first has to be equated with the visual. We find this here by following the overall trajectory from the inside to the outside, from private and inaccessible states to external, choreographically generated visual forms.
Sasa Bozic, October 2016
Cast & Credits
CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY: Isabelle Schad
CO-CHOREOGRAPHY, PERFORMANCE: Lea Moro
DRAMATURGY ADVISOR: Sasa Bozić
SOUND: Damir Šimunović
LICHTDESIGN: Bruno Pocheron
TECH: Bruno Pocheron, Mehdi Toutain-Lopez
COSTUME: Charlotte Pistorius
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Heiko Schramm
Supported by a long-term collaboration with Laurent Goldring.
A production by Isabelle Schad in co-production with Künstlerhaus Mousonturm as part of the dance platform Rhein-Main and SOPHIENSÆLE.
Funded by the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senatskanzlei – Cultural Affairs and the National Performance Network (NPN).
Supported by Wiesen55 e.V., Espace Darja, Casablanca und Goethe-Institut Marokko.
Thanks to: Volker Hüdepohl, Frances d’Ath, Nicole Walle, Andres Bucci and my teachers Jochen Knau, Heiko Schwarzburger and Gerhard Walter
Sophiensæle
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)
Isabelle Schad / Trailers and Video Documentations
- Isabelle Schad: Interview / Portrait Isabelle Schad (2017)
- Isabelle Schad: Mirroring (2024)
- Isabelle Schad: Yuki Onna (2024)
- Isabelle Schad: The Shift Of Focus (2023)
- Isabelle Schad: Personne With Voice (2023)
- Isabelle Schad: Solo for Claudia and Josephine / Bodies of Light (2022)
- Isabelle Schad: HARVEST (2021)
- Isabelle Schad: TURNING SOLO 2 (2021)
- Isabelle Schad: ROTATIONS (2021)
- Isabelle Schad: FUR (2021)
- Isabelle Schad: Knotting (Film) (2020)
- Isabelle Schad: FUR (showing) (2020)
- Isabelle Schad: Reflection (2019)
- 24/7 Dance Movie / Isabelle Schad: Reflection (2019)
- Isabelle Schad: INSIDE OUT (2018)
- Isabelle Schad: Turning Solo (2017)
- Isabelle Schad: Double Portrait (2017)
- Isabelle Schad: Pieces and Elements (2016)
- Isabelle Schad: Fugen (2015)
- Isabelle Schad: Collective Jumps (2014)
- Isabelle Schad: Form und Masse (2014)
- Isabelle Schad: DER BAU – Gruppe12x60 (2014)
- Isabelle Schad: Der Bau (2013)
- Isabelle Schad: Experience#1 (2012)
- Isabelle Schad: Musik (Praticable) (2011)
- Isabelle Schad: Sweet Dreams are made (2010)