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Recording: 2021-07-16 , Sophiensæle (Video © Walter Bickmann)

Irena Z. Tomažin, Jule Flierl

U.F.O.

Sophiensæle

Production Details / Press Releases

The Hungarian-Serbian poet and performer Katalin Ladik is considered the “Yoko Ono of the Balkans” and a pioneer of noise and performance art in Southeastern Europe: With the “SoundBodyPoetry” of her radical body art performance UFO Party from 1969, she shook the artistic scene at the time and established methods of experimental voice work and physical performance already in the 1970s.

In their first collaboration, German sound dancer Jule Flierl and Slovenian choreo-vocalist Irena Z. Tomažin celebrate their shared interest in Ladik‘s artistic position: a homage that blurs the boundaries between poetry, acting and experimental voice work, while continuing the two artists‘ own research into the physical experience of language and the articulation of different layers of the voice.

“…her voice is accompanied by electronic music from a tape recorder, her own voice in a completely different position, the rhythmic rumbling…with a rope tied around it, and the sounds…hanging from her shoulder. At times she would recite something while leaving the room and when she is already gone, the speakers still carry her voice…”
Letter from László Lakner to Gábor Altorjay, 16. June 1970, taken from the book by Emese Kürti, SCREAMING HOLE, 2017, published by acb RESEARCHLAB

KATALIN LADIK, born in Novi Sad, Serbia, in 1942, is a poet. However, she finds paper – poetry’s traditional medium – too static, and replaces it with her (often naked) body: sensual, individual, and political. Her controversial poetic performances were accompanied by graphic scores – collages arranged in evocative images that she then interpreted in situ. Her vocal compositions were constructed around the material quality of sound. Stripping language of meaning, the artist broke it down to phonemes to expose the primeval, instinctive, and mechanical aspects of language. Her staggering vocal range (from overtones to bass) turned each of her public appearances, whether solo or as part of music and experimental art groups, into a social event. In dynamic instability, Ladik finds freedom; in incomplete definition, potential; in active indecision, an escape from easy generalizations. She endlessly reinvents her language(s). Her work is based on constant differentiation – distortion, aberration, pause – yet remains surprisingly coherent.

IRENA Z. TOMAŽIN is a dancer, experimental singer and philosopher, who works in the field of theatre and music. Her work has been subject of analysis by Bojana Kunst (The voice of the dancer) and Sophie Herr (Geste de la voix et théatre du corps). Her writings on the philosophy of the voice have been published in diverse art publications. Tomažin has created three albums: Crying Games, Taste of Silence and Lump in the throat. Her work is a consequent exploration of the non-linguistic voice as a medium in physical performance. Amongst others she has worked with Janez Janša, Tino Sehgal, Mala Kline, Christian Kesten and Josephine Evrad. Irena teaches at the Workshop Series The world is Sound in Berlin. (documenta14.de/de/artists/13488/katalin-ladik)

JULE FLIERL is a dance and voice artist who develops practices that conceive of the voice as a dancer, translating dance into the auditory realm. Her practice lives between experimental choreography and somatic singing methods, in which she develops scores to unsettle the relationship between seeing and hearing. She revives and continues the legacy of Valeska Gert, avant-garde dancer from 1920‘s Berlin, who first conceptualized the term Tontanz: to dance with one‘s voice. She hosts the voice performance series FROM BREATH TO MATTER in Berlin. She worked as dancer with Bryan Campbell, Martin Nachbar, Ibrahim Quarishi, Gintersdorfer/Klaßen, Sergiu Matis, Tino Sehgal and Meg Stuart a.o.

[Source: play bill]

TFB Nr. 1539

Cast & Credits

CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY, PERFORMANCE: Irena Z. Tomažin, Jule Flierl
LIGHT: Gretchen Blegen
SOUND: Nicola Ratti
COSTUME: Jean-Paul Lespagnard in collaboration with Muriel Kunkel and Marcelo Chavira
HISTORICAL ADVISORY, DRAMATURGY: Kata Kasznahorkai
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Alexandra Wellensiek, Zavod Sploh
Assistance: Sharón Mercados Nogales

A production by Irena Z. Tomažin + Jule Flierl in co-production with SOPHIENSÆLE (Berlin), Zavod Sploh (Ljubljana), Charleroi Danse Centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles (Brussels), PACT Zollverein (Essen).
Supported by the Capital Cutural Fonds.
Thanks to: Ausland Berlin, Theaterhaus Mitte, Uferstudios, Eden/Dock 11, Maria Jerez, Mateusz Szymanówka, Lulu Obermayer, Luise Meier, Vera Pulido, Gaetan Rusquet, Adaline Anobile, Myriam van Imschoot, Marcus Berger, Antonia Baehr.

Sophiensæle

Sophienstraße 18
10178 Berlin

sophiensaele.com
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Tickets: (030) 283 52 66

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)

Jule Flierl / Trailers and Video Documentations

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