Narcissus Project - Composing physical difference

Performance danse brute sunday July 24, 2011
„narcissus project“ (choreography Michael Turinsky)

Based on the planned performance on July 24 participants are invited to explore specific compositional challenges of radical physical difference in the frame of physical training, improvisations, short choreographic sequences and shared reflections. The main focus is on the working processes of the dance collective danse brute in gerneral and of the work of the Viennese dance maker Michael Turinsky in particular.

Participants will thus become dance makers for a weeklong process of the development of a inclusive dance piece. A performance phrase will be developed and shown on the last day of the workshop.

„[I]f we don’t acknowledge the differences between disabled and non-disabled dancers we lose lifetimes of experience and difference beneath a blanket of good intention. It is the acknowledgement of difference and the resolution or exploration of the problems that arise from it that invigorate the work.“
(Adam Benjamin, Making an entrance: theory and practice for disabled and non-disabled dancers)



Michael Turinsky
Michael Turinsky studied Philosophy, Political Science and Italian Philology at the University of Vienna. 2007 he founded the association for philosophical practice and completed Alito Alessi's DanceAbility Teacher Training at ImPulsTanz Vienna.
He was tutor at the institute for Philosophy at the University of Vienna and taught in the frame of the seminar for interdisciplinary mobile mentoring and family monitoring. He publishes philosophical texts for magazines and danced and performed for Bert Gstettner, danse brute, Barbara Kraus a.o.

Sonja Browne
Sonja Browne is dancer, choreographer, trainer and founding member of danse brute. She engages in inclusive dance work, dealing with the wide movement ranges originating from the physical, sensorial and cognitive differences of people with and without disabilities.
In 2011 she founded "tanzmontage.Balance" in the frame of Balance a platform of structured daily offer for people with disabilities.
Sonja Browne danced for Austrian choreographers Editta Braun/Salzburg and Willi Dorner/Vienna, AMICI/UK and Theater STAP/Belgium and is since 1999 choreographer and producer of collaborative work and performances for people with and without disabilities.