What is the underlying necessity of speaking? Does silence need to be broken and if so, how? Why does speaking have to stop? Is speaking replaced by movement? What does “silence” mean in dance?

Silence carries the dramaturgical tension, the fire that smoulders in speech, which is ready to let go or to be restrained. Silence is in dialogue with the expectation of the spectator who comes to find it or, conversely, to hear it break.

Aims of the workshop:

• to recognise the difference between silence and “doing nothing”
• to make the difference between speaking and making a statement
• to look at the text and the movement from the point of view of the silence it contains
• to work with rhythm in movement and text

Intention and material:

To stand on a stage means to assert oneself in this space, to fill it: an intention – a body – an idea. The stage demands one thing above all: to be able to inhabit it. Reference is often made to the quality of a text, a language, movements or a statement. But when we read a text, our attention is rarely focused on the silence it might contain. This is what we mean by “putting the text on stage”: putting air, energy and body into the text. The unsaid.

After the participants have been brought into an awake physical state, they are challenged and supported to define their own performance frame.

In order to achieve optimal potential development in defining their own performance frame, participants will be sent text material to prepare before the workshop. The idea is not to edit the text, but to use it as textual, physical material and as a formal-artistic and intellectual interface.

Workshop
When? 14 + 15 May 2022 | 10:00am to 4:00pm
Where? Tanz Station – Barmer Bahnhof
Price? 89.- Euros
Teachers: Florence Minder & Thusnelda Mercy

Register via anmeldung@tanz-station.de