Berlin has a vivid scene of performing and dancing artists who work in various forms and at diverse places – here are just two of many projects established in the city. Local artists and institutions working in these fields need a proper and reliable support and not just promises – but of course it must not come along with the destruction of other successful and popular venues in the city.
These are photos of the artist Stella Geppert and dancers inside her work «Hieroglyph Ceiling» from 2015/2016. This year she developed a performative artwork with the title «10 Scores for a Sculpture» based on it which will have its world premiere at 30th of August 2017 in the exhibition space of Haus am Lützowplatz which is the oldest art society of Berlin. These photos are from the final rehearsals earlier this week. ⠀
Stella Geppert’s work has ever since been a practice which connects performative concepts with installations and drawings. It is therefore consequent that she takes her work to the next level now and researches about spatial phenomena through the communicative and social behaviour of the human body to make collective action visible. ⠀
For «10 Scores for a Sculpture» all dancers wear a special sort of head antennae which constists of pipes attached to their heads and have a piece of charcoal at their end. With the help of these tactile sort of «communication organs» and body-expanding dance prostheses the team members explore the limitations of the physical «white space» and the given framework which both form the environment for the whole setting. So the description «framework» for her sculpture which is built as a walk-in space is taken literally in this performance. ⠀
Through these actions the word «score» unfolds its double meaning: It signifies the trace the bodies leave via the transmitting coal on the white wall and the subtle sounds emitted during the performance which refer to the acustic potential of the word, as scores are used as a way of musical notations. ⠀
As the movements are improvised we can be curious which data excactly will be collected in this unique form of human media art at its first official release by her and the accompanying professional dancers Jan Burkhardt, Lukas Geschwind, Kathleen Heil, Michelle Lui and Hilla Steinert. •