Eszter Salamon & Christine De Smedt
Transformers (Achtung: Studio ändert sich in der 2. Woche, Dance Arts Studio)

"Transformers" Transformers (Caution: Studio changes in the second week to Dance Arts Studio) This proposal aims to produce a performance to be performed on stage, after two weeks of rehearsal. "Transformers" is a research project addressing education and art practice as non-separated activities. It offers a space for experimentations on choreography, expression and exchange of knowledge based on interpretation of scores. The project is developed through workshop situations and daily practice at La Raffinerie-Brussels, Trafo-Budapest, PAF-St Erme, In-Presentable-Madrid, Prisma- Mexico City before happening in ImPulsTanz. Each "Transformers" is a chain link between previous and future "Transformers" whose methodology of development reflects upon the economic and the political issues related to the production of a group choreography today. Each performance of "Transformers" by new participants is based on a choreographic score that has been previously transformed by others and will be subject of modulation to become the score for the next participants of the next "Transformers". The score passes through an ever-lasting chain of transformation changing like a fairy tale does along its generations of narrators. The central activity is to interpret existing scores and transform them into new ones. The score indicates movement qualities, body tissues and vocal expressions as well as actions and sensation-tasks for spatial, temporal and relational propositions. Between other goals the scores work on deconstructing scenes of love, war and revolution. The work will be developed a) individually to define scores of physical principles and fictional bodies or actions according to different categories, b) and in groups to construct the performance resulting of the scores of each performer. As an introduction for the day we will start with 2 hours of work around actions of observation, differentiation and integration of movement- and vocal qualities. More then a warm up it is a journey through various movement patterns, states of consciousness and imagination, which will be developed further during the day. About the piece: "Transformers" constructs an experiential world through creating fictional environments and bodies - where the inner space expands into the environment or vice versa – to speculate about a new ordering of senses and expressions. Each new event refers to an imaginary reality, a reality where nature and technology converge on the scene of a world that is elsewhere. The engagement with all the senses is 'baroque' and this alludes to the orgy* of sensations. That could be what the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls a 'human space' …the world of emotions, dreams, myth, and madness - as well as the world of reflection. Isn’t that what we enjoy about sensual experience? Allow it to unfold in us? - Eszter Salamon * ‘to work’ (to do) or an excessive indulgence in a specified activity Eszter Salamon Eszter Salamon is a Hungarian choreographer living in Berlin. Following her classical dance studies at the National Academy of Dance in Budapest, she moves to France in 1992 and works with choreographers such as Mathilde Monnier and François Verret. Since 2001, she creates her own work: the solos "What A Body You Have, Honey" (2001) and Giszelle (2001) in collaboration with Xavier le Roy for Le vif du sujet at the Festival d'Avignon and the group pieces "Reproduction" (2004) at Podewil (Berlin) where she is artist-in-residence, "Magyar Tàncok" (2005) with Hungarian folk dancers and musicians at the Les Intranquilles festival in Lyon, the quartet Nvsbl (2006) at the PACT Zollverein (Essen), the film-choreography "AND THEN" (2007) at Les Subsistances (Lyon) and the concert-performance "Without You I Am Nothing" (2007) in collaboration with Aranxta Martinez. Her latest work, "Dance#1/ Driftworks", a duo with Christine De Smedt, was created at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts08 (Brussels). In 2008, she participated in 6Month1Location, an artistic research project based on self-organisation and self-education at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier. Salamon assisted in the direction of the opera Theater der Wiederholungen by Bernhard Lang at Steirischer Herbst (Graz - cultural capital 2003). In 2005, she staged the music of Karim Haddad in the frame of the project Seven attempted escapes from Silence at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin). Christine De Smedt After finishing studies in criminology, Christine De Smedt ‘s interest moved to dance and performance and went to study different movement research techniques. Christine De Smedt is a member of the company Les Ballets C. de la B. (Ghent, Belgium) since 1990. She presented her own work since 1993, a solo "La force fait l’union fait la force", a travelling project in the Balkan "Escape Velocity" (1998) and between 2000-2005 she worked on a large scale choreography project, "9x9", realised in 15 different cities in Europe and Canada. She was artistic coordinator for Les Ballets C. de la B between 2003 and 2005. De Smedt was collaborating for several years with Meg Stuart-Damaged Goods and initiated the multidisciplinary improvisation project Crash Landing in collaboration with Meg Stuart and David Hernandez (1996-1999). In the last years, she worked with Marten Spångberg, Mette Edvardsen, Christelle Fillod, Milli Bitterli, Susanne Berggren and was performing in Project by Xavier Le Roy. Lately she collaborated with Eszter Salamon for the quartet nvsbl (2006) and the duet dance#1/Driftworks (2008). In 2008 she was also working with Myriam Van Imschoot on PickUpVoices (mingles historical research and performance), and with Philipp Gehmacher and Vladimir Miller for the video installation Dead Reckoning.