“We live in a new world in which old things are no longer taken for granted” – says the Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus, who is already slightly graying in his curls, in the run-up to this year’s ImPulsTanz program.
In fact, this year’s program by ImPulsTanz boss Karl Regensburger and his team looks like a form of orientation search in a world in which art can actually play a new role once more. And this role of art is less elitist than elementary. The dance and performance theater wants to go back to the roots of our culture, our conflicts – and also wants to feel the conflicts of our present through the basic questions of art. “I’m still concerned with the concept of harmony,” says the great Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in an interview with ORF.at regarding her work “Mystery Sonatas”, which is now being shown in Vienna: “When I say harmony, then I mean it I don’t think it’s regarding beauty, it’s regarding the connection and cohesion of things. And this cohesion does not work with exclusion processes that hide everything that is different.”
Photo series with 4 pictures
She is in favor of a new mindfulness, not least one of people towards their environment, says the choreographer, who can soon look back on a 40-year work history in Vienna since the Rosas first performed in 1984. “During the pandemic we learned that we only experienced the world through a filter and that we were almost breathless,” says De Keersmaeker regarding the experiences of recent years.
The role of beauty and the place of man
The fact that beauty still plays a role in the interpretation of the present should be shown at the opening of this year’s ImPulsTanz Festival with the piece “Full Moon” by Pina Bausch from 2006, which the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch in the Burgtheater was the Austrian premiere will present.
The production “Mist”, which is Damien Jalet’s third collaboration with the Japanese artist Kohei Nawa, was intended to show that dance theater not only takes place on stage, but also on the screens. This time the two have teamed up with the Iranian filmmaker Rahi Rezvani and with Nederlands Dans Theater they dive into an intoxicatingly beautiful world of images that almost tells something like the history of mankind – this time on display at the Austrian Film Museum.
Topics are in the foreground
It goes without saying that a number of big names that are well known in Vienna will be presenting their programs at ImPulsTanz. Once once more there is a strong focus on Flanders: in addition to De Keersmaeker, Jan Lauwers is present with the Needcompany – and permanent Alex Reed Vandekeybus. The notorious Viennese performer celebrates the 35th anniversary of his Ultima-Vez-Compagnie, then pays homage to the deceased festival co-founder Ismael Ivo – and also teaches classes. It is the program and precisely the exploration of what is no longer a matter of course that will make up this festival – and invite much more than those in the know, what the insecurities of the last few years have done to us.
The program in the remix, part 1
“Necessity for a new cohesion”
The South African Dada Masilo, trained by Pina Bausch, will use her Dance Factory in the performance “The Sacrifice” to derive precisely the moment of identity formation from the motif of the ritual. “Languages,” she says, “are a medley in South Africa because there are just so many. But underneath there is the language of ritual, which can at least help you to reflect on your own legacy. But, as also pointed out, this can only work if all people recognize their respective identities.
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The own canon is given a new perspective
So many performances will question the canon of their own culture. Also by venturing out, like Vandekeybus with his new work on the 4,000-year-old hymn to the Sumerian goddess Inanna, to tell the different states of one’s story. “Hands do not touch your precious me” is the name of the work, which is due to the collaboration with the French artist Olivier de Sagazan, who introduced Vandekeybus to the principle of archaic transformation and to working with flaming heads and old masks.
Again Vandekeybus will be part of the performance. For a simple reason, as he argues with a reference to Hannah Arendt: “It’s impossible to tell your own story, only the people who are close to you can do that.” put the narrator on the stage.
Mowgli becomes a girl with a new mission
Akram Khan’s company wants to prove that you have to put the classic story on a new footing. With the “Jungle Book reimagined” the colonial history of this classic by Rudyard Kippling is stripped away. The “Jungle Book” is no longer set in a glorified past, but in a future landscape that appears completely disfigured by climate change alone.
The program in the remix, part 2
Mowgli is no longer a boy, but the very young girl he met at the end of his journey in the original story. The heroine Mowgli has to face new challenges and the threat of the world around her. This performance is poetic and decidedly poetic, with which the festival also wants to address a young audience as part of an additional followingnoon performance.
Learning from the Elders
One of the most haunting performances of the festival might be seen at the Museum of Modern Art. In “Figuring Age” the Hungarian-Romanian performer Boglarka Börcsök confronts what she calls “the knowledge of the old body”. For this project, Börcsök tracked down Hungarian expressive dancers who were over 90 years old and who shaped body perception in Hungary. Once once more she documented on film the possibilities for moving around in old age. In addition to the recorded video sequences, the artist will re-experience the stories of the women as a re-enactment – a process which she herself describes as appropriating it as spooky, but in a positive sense. The knowledge of these women, according to the background of their work, may be passed on to a new generation, especially beyond the borders of political differences.
As far as shifts are concerned, the festival from July 7th to August 7th focuses on a complete breadth: the classic performance visitors, the young people, who you want to address with your own “Festival Lounge” (together with FM4). And everyone who lives in the city with the “Public Moves” program, which goes all the way to Donaustadt.
ORF.at accompanies the festival with its own special channel. There will also be focal points for the festival on FM4 and ORF III.
