Whereas the Viennese Dance Scene attracts attention with a paper concerning an essential dance reform, there are also many things happening in the United Kingdom.
Forced Entertainment, the legendary company from Sheffield - last time seen in Vienna with their latest piece "Bloody Mess" at Wiener Festwochen 2004 - celebrates its 20th anniversary this autumn and lets the corks pop in every respect.
On the one hand, Forced Entertainment (together with LIFT) has programmed a two-weeks festival of a special kind. Indoor Fireworks in Hammersmith will show inspiring, provokative, entertaining and challenging works, partly never seen in Great Britain before.
"But from Forced Entertainment itself to Gob Squad, Eva Meyer-Keller, Walid Raad, Edit Kaldor und Random Scream, the work here is united by its challenge to realism, by its playful engagement with the world, its troubles and its fantasies and by its subversion of audience expectations. Truth and untruth intertwine. Humour and pain sit side by side", mentions Tim Etchells in his intrduction to the festival.
For all of you who take advantage in this opportunity and join one or several of these events: we would look forward to you giving us a report.
For the ones who can't take part, we urge you to go into the book "Not even a game anymore", edited by Judith Helmer and Florian Malzacher.
In this work you will find subjective impressions as well as academic analysis and reports on the background of the unmistakable aesthetics and the spectacular using of movement language of Forced Entertainment, written by Gerald Siegmund, Matthew Goulish, Patricia Benecke and others, illustrated by numerous fotographs of Hugo Glendinning.
On the other hand, NOW-Festival, taking place in Nottingham for 15 years, offers lots of performances, weaving together local artists and international celebrities, the infrastructure of the city and the audience, digital technologies and electronic music, the dark side of life and weird humour.
There will be -among others- performances from Bomba Suicida, Vincent Dance Company, Ronald Fraser-Munroe and Lucy Orta, giving a new dimension to the idea of "public art" with her performance Dwelling X.
A suspenseful discourse - going on at Article 19 for a while - can be led from the home computer and could bring fresh air to the discussion about Contemporary Dance: „Dance Goes Insane“.
Neil Nisbeth and his team go for it and and make a clean sweep.
In their view, the actual Contemporary Dance productions are plain dull, boring, not spectacular at all and appear to have all the creative energy of a can of motor oil. Even the strongest proponent of the post-modern era would be head butting the walls in frustration.
Does the Contemporary Dance scene not manage to convey its concerns to the audience and keep their attention to the end of the pieces?
Will the - anyhow not huge - community of Contemporary Dance lovers be frightened off completely?
Your opinion is needed - there is a possibility to post on the Article 19 website - please log yourselves in and join the discussion, beeing a fruitful basis for the future of Contemporary Dance.
To all the dancing souls out there, who are by now bored by little physical activity brought by sitting in the audience, reading books or sitting in front of the computer - head for London!
You have time till November 8 to send your CVs, video tapes and DVDs to the Commercial Street, DV8 needs fresh flesh.
Please bring at least 3 years of experience and high technical skills.
ONE woman and ONE man will make it and be part of the internazional touring 2005.
For more information see our EventDataBase or go for the DV8 website. Good luck!