Anna MacRae

During this TURBO residency I am interested in researching how we, the performers, can de-synchronise our spoken words from our physical and emotional involvement. What combinations of text can bounce off combinations of movement to produce different ways in which the body can be seen or heard? As multiple meanings arise, to what extend do the performative power of words have upon our bodies and how we perceive them? This task then leads me to ask more general questions that come up in my everyday life that relate to belief, for example, at what point do we “hear” information? How are we taking things in, how are we putting things out? How are we filtering, how are we acting? How are we making choices, like being seen or not? Or being in opposition to something or being in opposition to what is happening?
When do we believe something, someone?
I am interested in using our daily social and political propaganda as a beginning source to draw text, looking at speeches from varied authorities such as, Slavoj Žižek, Bono, David Lynch, Barack Obama or Helen Clark. In relation to this, as a starting point, I would like to deal with known or familiar movements these could be from folk, ritual or social dance. Do such movements(e.g. from war dances or wedding rituals)from the past still communicate something or still have relevance to us today?
I am aware that it is a rare opportunity to have a research-residency as part of such a diverse festival so my main interest in this residency is about the exchange between the artists involved and to find a relationship between my research and the workshops/projects that are on offer.


Anna MacRae (* 1977 in New Zealand), lives and works in Vienna, graduated with a diploma in Contemporary Dance and Choreography, in Auckland 1996. Anna has danced with New Zealand's most acclaimed choreographers such as Shona McCullagh, Michael Parmenter, and Douglas Wright and was a founding member of Curve Dance Collective.
As a 2001 danceWeb scholarship recipient, Anna came to Vienna for the ImPuls Tanz Festival and became a member of Cie. Willi Dorner with whom she toured pieces threeseconds, no credits, […], Hängende Gärten throughout Europe, to South and North America, South Africa and China.
Beginning of 2005 Anna started working for Meg Stuart’s company Damaged Goods. She performed in Replacement and It’s not funny, for which she also had the role as choreographic assistant. From 2007 onwards she started working with French choreographer Boris Charmatz and performed in Quintette Cercle and Aatt Enen Tionon. She is also a regular contemporary dance teacher in Tanzquartier Wien, SEAD Salzburg, K3 Hamburg ao.
Anna’s own choreographic work continued with her solo work shock body premiered in March 06 in Festival imagetanz. It was shown also in festival Repérages in Lille, Szene Salzburg, Gasteig München, Volksbühne Berlin, festival Complicitats in Barcelona and at festival Inequilibrio in Castiglioncello. In 2008 she premiered her duet Survival of a Solo in Vienna after a series of research residencies, at buda Kortrijk, steptext dance project Bremen and Szene Salzburg ao.