Facing Nature
Conversations – Film Screenings – Live Reading
Durational event
Facing Nature is a three-day event devoted to exploring the status nature holds in art from the perspective of dance and performance. Twelve artists will exchange views on the role of nature in their work. These dialogues will be accompanied by screenings of films unfolding the autonomy of landscapes, as well as a nightly live reading of passages from Ursula K. LeGuin's novel "The Left Hand of Darkness".
Facing Nature is a three-day event devoted to exploring the status nature holds in art from the perspective of dance and performance. Twelve artists will exchange views on the role of nature in their work. These dialogues will be accompanied by screenings of films unfolding the autonomy of landscapes, as well as a nightly live reading of passages from Ursula K. LeGuin's novel "The Left Hand of Darkness".
Facing Nature is an attempt to probe the artistic impulses behind art dealing with nature. The aim is to co-create evenings that allow participants to immerse themselves in the topic and open up to the nature encountered in art..
OVERVIEW
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Friday 21.10.22
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18:00–18:30 Welcome
↪ CONVERSATIONS IN STUDIO 5
18:30– 19:30 Silvia Noronha & Carrie McILwain
20:00–21:00 Harun Morrison & Luiza Prado de O. Martins
21:30–22:30 Liz Rosenfeld & Sandra Man
↪ FILM SCREENING IN STUDIO 4
22:45–00:40 Daughters of the Dust, Film by Julie Dash, USA 1991 (112 min)
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Saturday 22.10.22
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↪ CONVERSATIONS IN STUDIO 5
16:00–17:00 Antonia Baehr & Sergiu Matis
17:30–18:30 Carrie McILwain & Silvia Noronha
19:30–20:30 Myriam Van Imschoot & Jefta van Dinther
↪ READING IN STUDIO 4
21:00–24:00 Reading by Lisa Densem, Oihane Roach & Litó Walkey from Ursula K. LeGuin's novel »The Left Hand of Darkness«
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Sunday 23.10.22
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↪ CONVERSATIONS IN STUDIO 5
16:00–17:00 Sandra Man & Liz Rosenfeld
17:30–18:30 Sergiu Matis & Antonia Baehr
19:30–20:30 Luiza Prado de O. Martins & Harun Morrison
21:00–22:00 Jefta van Dinther & Myriam Van Imschoot
↪ FILM SCREENING IN STUDIO 4
22:15–23:45 Nostalgia de la luz, Film by Patricio Guzmán, CHL 2010 (90min)
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Information on accessibility
The symposium will take place over three consecutive afternoons and evenings in Studio 4 and 5 on the area of Uferstudios.
In Studio 5, dialogues are held between two artists at a time. These talks will be held in English and will last one hour each. There will be thirty-minute breaks between the talks.
On Friday and Sunday evening, films will be presented in Studio 4. The films will be shown in the original language with English subtitles.
A reading takes place on Saturday evening. Three artists will read from a book one after the other. This reading lasts three to four hours, and as an audience member you can come or go at any time.
The language of the talks, readings and the subtitles of the films is English.
Studios 4 and 5 are stepless and wheelchair-accessible rooms with ground-level doors. There is regular ventilation during all breaks and the hygiene measures in force at the time are respected. The accessible toilet is located in the corridor between the two studios.
Chairs and beanbags will be available for seating. Juan Harcha is available to answer questions about accessibility: harcha@tanzfabrik-berlin.de I 030-200 592 70.
Admission free
In English
Registration required
The audience can leave and re-enter the studios at any time.
In English
Registration required
The audience can leave and re-enter the studios at any time.
Direction, concept: Felicitas Zeeden, Sandra Man | With: Antonia Baehr, Jefta van Dinther, Alm Gnista, Jared Gradinger, Myriam Van Imschoot, Sergiu Matis, Carrie McILwain, Harun Morrison, Silvia Noronha, Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Liz Rosenfeld a.o. Ursula K. Le Guin's texts are read by: Lisa Densem, Ohiane Roach, Litó Walkey
'Facing Nature' is funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, multi-sector funding for festivals and series, 2 years.
↪ BIOGRAFIES
Antonia Baehr’s pieces explore, among other things, the fiction of the everyday and the theater. Baehr studied with Valie Export Berlin and completed her Master's degree in Chicago. Antonia Baehr currently collaborates in duos with Jule Flierl, Latifa Laâbissi, Lucile Desamory, Neo Hülcker and Andrea Neumann. Baehr is producer of horse whisperer and dancer Werner Hirsch (who also appears in Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz film installations); composer/performer and ex-husband Henry Wilde; and others.
Jefta van Dinther is a choreographer living in Berlin. The moving body is the core of his practice but belongs to and interacts with a body of light, sound and materials. Central in his work is the question of what it means to be human, examined through its relation to society and environment but also to other forms of life such as the animal and other non-human entities. Jefta's performances reach out into metaphysical realms and deal with notions of illusion, the visible and the invisible, labour and voice.
Alm Gnista, based in Hangist, south-west Finland, pursues a multidisciplinary approach combining performance, education, work with nature, and construction, all with the aim of creating space for collaboration within the beauty of it all. As a performance artist, Alm is known for his enchanting presence and contributions of improvised (political) speeches, poetry & movement.
Jared Gradinger is an interdisciplinary artist working in the fields of performance, dance, social art, gardens, and ecology. Since moving to Berlin in 2002, he has been engaged in developing long-term collaborations and unique artistic practices that connect community, performance and nature whilst exploring different forms of co-existence. His work is based on the fundamental question: ‘What can we do together that we cannot do alone?’
Myriam Van Imschoot has developed an approach to questions about our societies in transition through somatic and conceptually honed performances, films and installations that engage the many dimensions and riddles of the human voice. Her growing transdisciplinary oeuvre occupies a unique place in the international arts field and is presented by a new artist-run structure, newpolyphonies vzw.
Sandra Man is an artist working with the media performance, text, and images, which she combines to create live art installations. Her work, focusing on the relationship between the body, language, and nature and our current ecological and technological circumstances, has been shown in theatres and art venues including Tanzfabrik Berlin, Sophiensaele, WUK performing arts Wien, Kunstraum Lakeside, HAUNT Berlin.
Sergiu Matis is a Romanian choreographer born in 1981 in Cluj-Napoca. He received his dance education at the Liceul de Coregrafie in Cluj and the Mannheim Academy of Dance, and began his career at Tanztheater Nuremberg. He has been living and working in Berlin since 2008, creating his own works such as Keep It Real (2013), Explicit Content (2015), Neverendings (2017), Hopeless. (2019) and UNREST (2021). He has led workshops and educational activities at a range of institutions worldwide. In 2014 he completed his masters in Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Inter-University Centre for Dance (HZT) / Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Content (2015), Neverendings (2017), Hopeless. (2019) and UNREST (2021). He has led workshops and educational activities at a range of institutions worldwide. In 2014 he completed his masters in Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Inter-University Centre for Dance (HZT) / Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).
Carrie McILwain is interested in the possibility of artistic performative research to enable other spaces of existence along-side normative structures of reality. Their work is based in somatic practice and is explored through collaborations and group researches. Since 2020 Carrie has focused on the figures of the Witch and the Nun. Seeing the Witch as a figure that can intra-act with matter and working with Hildegard von Bingen’s concept of Viriditas/ Green Power -they speculate towards a queer ecology.
Harun Morrison is an artist and writer based on the inland waterways. Across 2021 -2022 Harun was Designer and Researcher in Residence at V&A Dundee. His forthcoming novel, The Escape Artist will be published by Book Works in 2023. Since 2006, Harun has collaborated with Helen Walker as part of the collective practice They Are Here. Recent commissions include I’ll Bring You Flowers (2019), the performance 40 Temps, 8 Days (2017) at Tate Modern and Beacon Garden (2018 - 2020), a commission to co-design and community build a public garden in Dagenham, East London. This autumn, Harun continues to develop and repair a garden for Mind Sheffield, a mental health support service, as part of the Art Catalyst research programme Emergent Ecologies. Harun is currently exhibiting Dolphin Head Mountain at the Horniman Museum in South London, co-commissioned by Delfina Foundation. From 2019 - 2022, Harun was a trustee of the Black Cultural Archive.
Silvia Noronha (*1984 Belo Horizonte / BRA) lives and works in Berlin. She studied in Belo Horizonte, Copenhagen and Berlin and is a recent recipient of the Mart Stam Prize, the Elsa Neumann Scholarship of the State of Berlin, and the research grant of the Berlin Senate. She was also a fellow of the Goldrausch project for women artists in 2020. Silvia Noronha has participated in exhibitions nationally and internationally, including in Berlin, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Austria.
Luiza Prado de O. Martins is an artist, writer, educator, and researcher investigating plant-human relations, reproduction, herbal medicine, and radical, decolonising care. Her ongoing artistic research project, “In Weaving Shared Soil” explores sites of encounter between human and more-than-human actors implicated in spiritual and medicinal reproductive care. She is an assistant professor and vice-director of the Centre for Other Worlds at the Lusófona University in Lisbon. She is one half of the artist duo We Work in the Dark and a founding member of Decolonising Design.
Liz Rosenfeld is a Berlin-based visual and performance artist who works with drawing, film/video, performance, and experimental writing practices. Liz’s moving image and performance work approaches flesh as a non-binary collaborative material, specifically focusing on the potentiality of physical abundance, excess, and eroticism regarding questions connected to the responsibility and privilege of taking up space. Liz has been nominated for numerous art prizes and exhibits/performs internationally.
Felicitas Zeeden is a dramaturge and theatre scholar. She completed her PhD in theatre studies as a scholarship holder at the international research training group InterArt (FU Berlin) with the thesis "Aesthetics of the Social"; her research focuses on immersive performance aesthetics, theatre as social practice as well as dance and performance art. As a dramaturgy assistant, she has worked in the independent scene as well as in major theatre productions. Felicitas Zeeden currently works as a dramaturge at Tanzfabrik Berlin, where she also initiates projects on focus topics such as eco-feminism, aesthetics & sustainability and issues of slowing down. Felicitas is also working as a writer.
'Facing Nature' is funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, multi-sector funding for festivals and series, 2 years.
↪ BIOGRAFIES
Antonia Baehr’s pieces explore, among other things, the fiction of the everyday and the theater. Baehr studied with Valie Export Berlin and completed her Master's degree in Chicago. Antonia Baehr currently collaborates in duos with Jule Flierl, Latifa Laâbissi, Lucile Desamory, Neo Hülcker and Andrea Neumann. Baehr is producer of horse whisperer and dancer Werner Hirsch (who also appears in Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz film installations); composer/performer and ex-husband Henry Wilde; and others.
Jefta van Dinther is a choreographer living in Berlin. The moving body is the core of his practice but belongs to and interacts with a body of light, sound and materials. Central in his work is the question of what it means to be human, examined through its relation to society and environment but also to other forms of life such as the animal and other non-human entities. Jefta's performances reach out into metaphysical realms and deal with notions of illusion, the visible and the invisible, labour and voice.
Alm Gnista, based in Hangist, south-west Finland, pursues a multidisciplinary approach combining performance, education, work with nature, and construction, all with the aim of creating space for collaboration within the beauty of it all. As a performance artist, Alm is known for his enchanting presence and contributions of improvised (political) speeches, poetry & movement.
Jared Gradinger is an interdisciplinary artist working in the fields of performance, dance, social art, gardens, and ecology. Since moving to Berlin in 2002, he has been engaged in developing long-term collaborations and unique artistic practices that connect community, performance and nature whilst exploring different forms of co-existence. His work is based on the fundamental question: ‘What can we do together that we cannot do alone?’
Myriam Van Imschoot has developed an approach to questions about our societies in transition through somatic and conceptually honed performances, films and installations that engage the many dimensions and riddles of the human voice. Her growing transdisciplinary oeuvre occupies a unique place in the international arts field and is presented by a new artist-run structure, newpolyphonies vzw.
Sandra Man is an artist working with the media performance, text, and images, which she combines to create live art installations. Her work, focusing on the relationship between the body, language, and nature and our current ecological and technological circumstances, has been shown in theatres and art venues including Tanzfabrik Berlin, Sophiensaele, WUK performing arts Wien, Kunstraum Lakeside, HAUNT Berlin.
Sergiu Matis is a Romanian choreographer born in 1981 in Cluj-Napoca. He received his dance education at the Liceul de Coregrafie in Cluj and the Mannheim Academy of Dance, and began his career at Tanztheater Nuremberg. He has been living and working in Berlin since 2008, creating his own works such as Keep It Real (2013), Explicit Content (2015), Neverendings (2017), Hopeless. (2019) and UNREST (2021). He has led workshops and educational activities at a range of institutions worldwide. In 2014 he completed his masters in Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Inter-University Centre for Dance (HZT) / Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Content (2015), Neverendings (2017), Hopeless. (2019) and UNREST (2021). He has led workshops and educational activities at a range of institutions worldwide. In 2014 he completed his masters in Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Inter-University Centre for Dance (HZT) / Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).
Carrie McILwain is interested in the possibility of artistic performative research to enable other spaces of existence along-side normative structures of reality. Their work is based in somatic practice and is explored through collaborations and group researches. Since 2020 Carrie has focused on the figures of the Witch and the Nun. Seeing the Witch as a figure that can intra-act with matter and working with Hildegard von Bingen’s concept of Viriditas/ Green Power -they speculate towards a queer ecology.
Harun Morrison is an artist and writer based on the inland waterways. Across 2021 -2022 Harun was Designer and Researcher in Residence at V&A Dundee. His forthcoming novel, The Escape Artist will be published by Book Works in 2023. Since 2006, Harun has collaborated with Helen Walker as part of the collective practice They Are Here. Recent commissions include I’ll Bring You Flowers (2019), the performance 40 Temps, 8 Days (2017) at Tate Modern and Beacon Garden (2018 - 2020), a commission to co-design and community build a public garden in Dagenham, East London. This autumn, Harun continues to develop and repair a garden for Mind Sheffield, a mental health support service, as part of the Art Catalyst research programme Emergent Ecologies. Harun is currently exhibiting Dolphin Head Mountain at the Horniman Museum in South London, co-commissioned by Delfina Foundation. From 2019 - 2022, Harun was a trustee of the Black Cultural Archive.
Silvia Noronha (*1984 Belo Horizonte / BRA) lives and works in Berlin. She studied in Belo Horizonte, Copenhagen and Berlin and is a recent recipient of the Mart Stam Prize, the Elsa Neumann Scholarship of the State of Berlin, and the research grant of the Berlin Senate. She was also a fellow of the Goldrausch project for women artists in 2020. Silvia Noronha has participated in exhibitions nationally and internationally, including in Berlin, Brazil, the Netherlands, and Austria.
Luiza Prado de O. Martins is an artist, writer, educator, and researcher investigating plant-human relations, reproduction, herbal medicine, and radical, decolonising care. Her ongoing artistic research project, “In Weaving Shared Soil” explores sites of encounter between human and more-than-human actors implicated in spiritual and medicinal reproductive care. She is an assistant professor and vice-director of the Centre for Other Worlds at the Lusófona University in Lisbon. She is one half of the artist duo We Work in the Dark and a founding member of Decolonising Design.
Liz Rosenfeld is a Berlin-based visual and performance artist who works with drawing, film/video, performance, and experimental writing practices. Liz’s moving image and performance work approaches flesh as a non-binary collaborative material, specifically focusing on the potentiality of physical abundance, excess, and eroticism regarding questions connected to the responsibility and privilege of taking up space. Liz has been nominated for numerous art prizes and exhibits/performs internationally.
Felicitas Zeeden is a dramaturge and theatre scholar. She completed her PhD in theatre studies as a scholarship holder at the international research training group InterArt (FU Berlin) with the thesis "Aesthetics of the Social"; her research focuses on immersive performance aesthetics, theatre as social practice as well as dance and performance art. As a dramaturgy assistant, she has worked in the independent scene as well as in major theatre productions. Felicitas Zeeden currently works as a dramaturge at Tanzfabrik Berlin, where she also initiates projects on focus topics such as eco-feminism, aesthetics & sustainability and issues of slowing down. Felicitas is also working as a writer.
