Testing New Stages
24. September 19:30 -
HAU 2 HALLESCHES UFER 32
10963 BERLIN
10963 BERLIN
Beatrice Steimer
An Experiment Intensegrity & Superherotrance
Young Joo Lee
V.I.S.I.O.N. & The Dolphine Dance
TESTING STAGE - A WINDOW TO PERFORMA NEW YORK
15 September – 01 October
HAU1,2,3
15 September – 01 October
HAU1,2,3
Live, current, transitory, temporary – theater and performance art combine a number of basic principles. Performance is an everyday concept for the theater, and is experiencing a boom in the Fine Arts – possibly because of the financial crisis, among other things. Both defy economic logic; they are either dependent on subsidies or, like performances in the Fine Arts, exist on the edge of the art market, as a byproduct of commercial gallery openings, at biennales and in museums or in the art subculture. Performance Art can now point to a canon, a repertoire and a legacy – which is critically examined by the latest generation. Issues such as authenticity and repetition, truth and fiction, original and fake line up in the discussions surrounding performance art, which has now moved into a phase of its own museumization – as shown by the major Marina Abramovic retrospective “The Artist Is Present” at the MoMA in New York. What do members of the young generation think of this canon and where are they doing things differently? The younger generation’s image ofthe body is dominated by the media; and they only know their predecessors’ performances from jerky black-and-white videos. From the very beginning of the HAU we have stood before the artists – sometimes modestly, sometimes not – shown them our three theaters and said: “This is what we’ve got. What have you got?”That has led to a lot of cooperative projects, some of them were existing works which were placed in a different context by being brought into the theater, and some of them were new, made especially for our theaters. For the “Testing Stage” festival, the HAU has once more invited fine artists – this time to show their works in performative formats. What happens in the tense contrast between the white cube and the black box? We are interested in the historical side as well as in the spatial and architectural aspect. Along with new works by Keren Cytter, Phil Collins, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Ari Benjamin Meyers, Nevin Aladağ, Tobias Rehberger and Simon Fujiwara, we are holding an all-night Performance Night in two of our theaters as well as a night of music projects by fine artists.
