TALKING HEAD
As test subjects, performers are placed into atwittertubeandfacebook apparatus, in which absurd characters emerge following the dictate of current online-happenings. The performers are constructing, direct and live on stage, text sculptures as a form of dance and an ever-new image of themseives via webcam.
Talking Matroschkas or a small Tower of Babylon. The glossolalia of Christian antiquity, the automatic writing of the Surrealists, black metal’s growling –those are just some of the numerous acts of speech/writing of the finding of oneself within losing, of the giving up of will, because of a hope of gained insight.
Advanced Modern Talking Heads have found their place on the web. From the social networks we hear the droning of the polyphonic babble of simulated communication, which won’t give a hoot for the old distinction between original and copy, but rather builds its nest in an unsafe “space between”. People tweeting about a state of identity, which will be a completely different one tomorrow. In the biblical sense of the “talkers in tongues” we may be made to believe: we are being spoken by the Web 2.0 – it talks through us Talking Heads on the base of the actual Laws of the online world. The term Talking Head does not only recall one of the most successful New Wave bands of the 1970/80’s turn of the decade, it also denotes the frame of a close-up camera shot on the speaker. But what is talking head that is of a sound mind (no religion, no drugs), whose experimental goal would be to improvise in various jargons of speech? E.g. the sociological lingo of the explorers of the precariate, the tech-talk of IT wizards, the BA-slang of neo-liberal worshippers of the economy, or the feverish post structural discourse of dance theoreticians. Even if all forms of crude parody are to be disregarded, there is, with every form of expert jargon, if only for its tendency to exclude, always an urge for democratic contradiction; be it in the form of ironic subversion of it’s gestus of dominion, or alternatively, by its transformation into different fields of representation, which make it more difficult to “swagger” or make the “hot air”, which always resonates, more quickly distinguishable. Take for example the discursive experiment of placing two dancing Talking Heads on a stage.
CREDITS
Performance and Choreography: Stephanie Cumming, Luke Baio Artistic Direction and Choreography: Chris Haring
Composition, Sound: Andreas Berger (Glim)
Stage and Light Design: Thomas J. JelinekSet Design: Gerald Priewasser
Production Management and Research: Marlies Pucher Technical Direction: Roman Harrer
Video Technics: Ella Esque, Niki Passath
Theory and Text: Fritz Ostermayer
Video: Michael Loizenbauer
A production by Liquid Loft in collaboration with Tanzquartier Wien.
Premiere: December 9th, 2010 Tanzquartier Wien Liquid Loft is supported by MA 7 Kulturabteilung Stadt Wien and BMUKK for Unterricht Kunst und Kultur.
Photo by: Chris Haring
For more informations, riders, press map, financial conditions please contact Line Rousseau or Marion Gauvent
AGENDA
under construction
2016
02 October 2016 Wroclaw ESK 2016, PL
2015
15 June 2015 IKS Festival Split, HR
06 February 2015 Mois Multi, Quebec, CA
05 February 2015 Mois Multi, Quebec, CA
04 February 2015 Mois Multi, Quebec, CA
2014
20 November 2014 (excerpt) Rennweg Studios, Vienna, AT
22 August 2014 (excerpt) Salotto Vienna Trieste, IT
12 August 2014 Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT
11 August 2014 Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT
10 August 2014 Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT
2013
20 September 2013 Aura Festival, Kaunas, LI
07 September 2013 Tanzlabor 21 / Mousonturm Frankfurt aM, DE
06 September 2013 Tanzlabor 21 / Mousonturm Frankfurt aM, DE
06 April 2013 La Briqueterie/CDC du Val de Marne/Festival EXIT Mac Créteil, FR
05 April 2013 La Briqueterie/CDC du Val de Marne/Festival EXIT Mac Créteil, FR
04 April 2013 La Briqueterie/CDC du Val de Marne/Festival EXIT Mac Créteil, FR
26 January 2013 Trafo Budapest, HU
25 January 2013 Trafo Budapest, HU
2012
03 December 2012 Access to Dance / Muffathalle, München, DE
30 September 2012 Sofia Dance Week, BG
29 May 2012 Gavella / Dance Week Festival, Zagreb, HR
28 May 2012 Gavella / Dance Week Festival, Zagreb, HR
20 April 2012 Teatr Wspolczesny / Kontrapunkt Festival, Szeczin, PL
03 April 2012 Belgrade Int Dance Festival, RS
31 March 2012 Hall / Tirol, AT
2011
18 November 2011 Tanzquartier Wien, AT
26 August 2011 Fronta Festival, Murska Sobota, SL
12 August 2011 ODEON / Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT
11 August 2011 ODEON / Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT
16 June 2011 TanzIst Dornbirn, AT
15 June 2011 TanzIst Dornbirn, AT
2010
11 December 2010 Tanzquartier Wien, AT
10 December 2010 Tanzquartier Wien
09 December 2010 Tanzquartier Wien, AT