Anna Mendelssohn

art for a lonely heart

“More communication first of all means more conflict.” P. Sloterdijk

I am currently planning a new project, art for a lonely heart, which will deal with the notion of dialogue. Starting point for the work is a certain curiosity and longing to rediscover dialogue on stage. With the de(con)struction of the fourth wall in contemporary theatre/performance on-stage dialogues have become an increasingly difficult business. We do not like to pretend anymore that the audience isn’t there, so we speak to them. But it seems to me that we have become so busy with letting the audience know, that we know, that they are there, that we find it very difficult to have a conversation with a fellow actor. In art for a lonely heart I want to examine dialogue and it’s rhetorics in a theatrical but moreover in a personal and a political sense. How suitable is dialogue as a tool for solving conflict between people, nations, cultures? What does it take? How dialogical does our form of democracy really function? What do we mean when talk about reaching an understanding or a consensus? How does dialogue change in the age of universal communication? Is it at all possible to express the complexities and intricacies of our emotional life adequately via language? What influence does our daily discourse have on our political discourse and vice versa?
The Turbo Residency of Impulstanz will mark my first research into this project. The international nature of this festival makes it an ideal surrounding for investigating the topic of communication. What happens when people from such different social, cultural and artistic backgrounds come together? How is knowledge being passed on? How do people deal with criticism? What kind of non-verbal dialogues arise – from dance, from movement?
What forms of communication take place between audience and stage?
I want to view this residency as a Tower of Babel phase and enjoy the great variety of dialogues and different forms of communication that can be found throughout the festival.

Anna Mendelssohn

studied Acting in the UK at Dartington College of Arts and at Bretton Hall, School of Performing Arts. After graduating in 2004 she joined the company toxic dreams in Vienna and has since performed in over twelve of their productions (Meet the Composer; Kongs, Blondes and Tall Buildings; Pink Vanja; Mein Camp; Ich Sterbe; My dinner with toxic dreams; a.o.). She has also performed in the Wiener Festwochen production The Family Table directed by David Mayaan, with Cie Loulou Omer (A Story of Murder), vis plastica (Perpetuum Mobile, Psy-comix), Daniel Aschwanden (PPP), Linda Taylor (Operations of Debate), Peter Stamer (Drama Queens), André Turnheim (Venus im Pelz) and SUPERAMAS (Empire Art&Politics). Her own creations include the duett outside i in collaboration with Jan Machacek (2008) and the solo Cry Me A River which premiered in Tanzquartier in May 2010 and recently won the Jury- as well as the Coproduction prize at the Arena Festival in Erlangen.
http://ongoing.nightmares.toxicdreams.at
www.superamas.com