reading: charles stross – the trade of queens

hips hip knee knee

Somehow my hip has decided to fall apart. And my knee. Boring not to be able to dance, ride, yoga, hike, climb etc. Exciting though to have x-rays of my bones, and soon shall be having a MRI scan also. Along with the pelvis and knee I had an ultrasound of my hip socket. It looked nothing other than a grainy fly-over of the moon by a Soviet satellite around 1960-something. Except the moon doesn’t heave its landscape by hundreds of meters the way the staticky scan of my hip did when I dropped my leg to the side.

Christoph Schlingensief

Reading: Liane Simmel – Tanzmedizin in der Praxis: Anatomie, Prävention, Trainingstipps

Reading: Gerald Siegmund – William Forsythe: Denken in Bewegung

grunewald schlachten see

Raining in steady endless sheets, grey and the faint sense of autumn already. While hiking around Vienna I thought I should continue this now back in Berlin, and so went for a short walk with Dasniya along one of my favourite places nearby, Grunewald and Schlachtensee. The inclement day kept most people away and getting turned around in the forest added to the feeling of directionlessness. Some ducks on the lake…

yoga + shibari brussels photos

Some photos from the workshop Dasniya taught in Brussels late-June/early-July. I’ve been meaning to put these up for a while, and so finally they arrive. The first few are from the workshop itself, and the latter from the photoshoot we did on the final night, half an hour south of the city in a 300-year-old stables. Looking through the hundreds of photos last night I found now I like other ones, or others are more obviously attractive. Never mind, here are some…

(Some credits info: Concept: Dasniya Sommer, Photographs & Space: Charleroi Danses la Raffinerie, (studio), Philippe Theunissen (photoshoot). All photos: Frances d’Ath.)

Werner Bab

One of the first sites I did as a freelancer was porting imdialog-ev.org from a dead cms into WordPress for photographer and documentary maker (and philosopher) Christian Ender. Imdialog! is a documentary project on Werner Bab, a Berliner Jew who was sent to Auschwitz in 1942. He survived there, as well as Mauthausen and Ebensee, to return to Berlin after the war.

Christian documented Werner’s journey through the camps in Zeitabschnitte des Werner Bab, which has been shown across Germany in schools and around the world accompanied by Werner, who would speak on his experiences.

Werner died on 31st July, aged 86.

DEUTSCH

In den Abendstunden des 31. Juli 2010 ist Werner Bab plötzlich und unerwartet friedlich eingeschlafen, wenige Wochen vor seinem 86. Geburtstag.

Die letzten fünf Jahren engagierte sich Werner Bab unermüdlich und warb für Demokratie, Toleranz und Völkerverständigung.

Mit seiner lebensbejahenden und positiven Einstellung stand er in über 150 Gesprächen vor über 20.000 Schülern als Zeitzeuge zur Verfügung.

Offen beantwortete Werner Bab die gestellten Fragen zu seinen Erlebnissen als Häftling in den Konzentrationslagern Auschwitz, Mauthausen und Ebensee, um vor den Folgen totalitärer Regime zu warnen.

Um dieses Engagement zu unterstützen wurde der Verein „imdialog!e.V.“ gegründet, welcher nun aufgelöst wird.

Diese Internetseite, das hier bereitgestellte Gäste- und Gedenkbuch sowie die in 19 Sprachen untertitelte Dokumentation „Zeitabschnitte des Werner Bab“ werden in Erinnerung an Werner Babs Wirken weiter aufrechterhalten.

In stiller Trauer,

Christian Ender

Im August 2010

ENGLISH

On the evening of July 31, 2010, Werner Bab passed away peacefully. His death was sudden and unexpected, just a few weeks before his 86th birthday.

During the past five years, Werner Bab worked tirelessly toward democracy, tolerance and international understanding.

With his optimistic and positive attitude to life, he shared his experiences of the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee, answering questions from more than 20,000 students in over 150 discussions. His aim was to warn people of the consequences of a totalitarian regime.

In order to support this endeavour, the “imdialog!e.V.” association was founded, which has now been dissolved.

The Internet site www.imdialog-ev.org as well as the guest and remembrance book will continue to be maintained to honour the memory of Werner Bab and his achievements.

On this site, one may also request free of charge the complete documentary “Zeitabschnitte des Werner Bab” (“Time Intervals of Werner Bab”). This documentary has been subtitled in 19 languages.

In deepest sympathy,

Christian Ender

August, 2010

reading: jonathan burrows – a choreographer’s handbook

reading: jonathan safran foer – eating animals