Tag Archives: Installations

Written on by

Jute Disintegration – After …

A bike across to Kreuzberg in the morning after some demonic infestations before breakfast, to pick up a very special camera from the darling Christian. Among other things, today was my first time using a proper DSLR (for those who drool, a Canon EOS 5D mkII, with 24-70mm lens). That in itself was enough to keep me occupied with discovering how a proper lens swings between depth of field sublimity and mayhem. I have to get one of these…

After last week, preparing this time was somewhat more orderly, though we moved everything but the sofas out of the space, and seemed to have more of everything, though taking up less space. The same group again, Antek, Andreas, Rui, Monica, Ursula, Hartmut, Dasniya, and myself. Me mostly being outside photographing and occasionally making something with the rope, Hartmut making tea (no, he is not Teapot), and the other six dealing with the table.

Dispensing with a warmup, once we’d got through costumes and makeup, and were sitting around the table discussing last and this week, come 17h the ‘audience’ promptly arrived. Very prompt.

We’d talked about having an hour or so on our own to get things going, and so expected their arrival around 18h, and for people to come and go more like in a gallery. So, taken by surprise and the number of people who wandered in right on time, and finding it being regarded more as a performance than installation, we decided in future we’ll never mention the time we’re starting at, just sticking to from when anyone should make an appearance.

It got off to a fast start then, being nothing like some nerves to focus attention. And yes, by 18h when we’d hoped people would show up, it was getting decidedly interesting, with two long ‘scenes’ dominating the final hour.

Maybe to mention the limitations, as this was a rehearsal of sorts. It would be really nice to do this in Uferhallen proper, the vast space and us populating it, giving a background that is both visually interesting, a very specific light from above combined with blue-grey, concrete, oily steel colours, as well as the void between us and it. This space is vital to be able to create some balance between absence and objects across all scales.

The lighting also is obviously not so nice. Even a few cans from above would pull focus and shape the room and action. A few more and that would be all that’s necessary to attain a heightened sense of otherness in what’s being observed. It doesn’t need a huge rig and multiple states, but it really does need attention to this.

And obviously hiring some baroque costume frippery and a grass floor (and the occasional goat) would round it out nicely.

We tried without any sound this time, just that of Hartmut making tea, and this also seemed to leave the room too empty, with nothing for us to sit on. It might be appropriate to mic the space and then process the audio so it’s not intrusive and somehow can be sensed to come from the room.

As for what went on, the performance, installation, the people in it … this was so qualitatively far from last week. There were some quite excellent arrangements, scenes, progressions, starting especially from when Rui mimicked Dasniya on the floor, both suspending one arm. This was about the end of the first hour, so it seems it does take that long to build a bit of mess in the space and get through the establishing of everything.

Ursula wandering out to have a cigarette, causing a few people to follow her to see what was going on … Rui tying Antek over the table while Ursula read from The Soft Machine, “cocks ejaculating, soap in asses, cocks shooting like fireworks in the sun …” and so on (I later swapped it for Negarestani’s Cyclonopaedia, which was even stranger), with Andreas, Dasniya and Monica sitting along the wall next to Hartmut – this scene went on for a while and became decidedly uncanny in its stillness with the text.

Antek remained there till the end, joined by others at various times, and in somewhat symmetry by two suspended at the other end of the table. Many other smaller things interspersed.

This then, was our first attempt at an anarchic unshibari installation/performance. There’s a lot we could continue with, and shambling towards putting it in a proper big space with all the required accoutrements would be very nice.

(And very many thanks to the unshibari-ists who spent the last two Sundays in a mess of ropes to try this all out!)

Jute Disintegration – Books and ropes on table
Jute Disintegration – Books and ropes on table
Jute Disintegration – Rui
Jute Disintegration – Rui
Jute Disintegration – Hartmut and tea
Jute Disintegration – Hartmut and tea
Jute Disintegration – Andreas' wrist
Jute Disintegration – Andreas’ wrist
Jute Disintegration – Hartmut and Dasniya
Jute Disintegration – Hartmut and Dasniya
Jute Disintegration – Beginning, eating
Jute Disintegration – Beginning, eating
Jute Disintegration – Andreas, foliage
Jute Disintegration – Andreas, foliage
Jute Disintegration – The table and reading
Jute Disintegration – The table and reading
Jute Disintegration – Legs
Jute Disintegration – Legs
Jute Disintegration – The table and reading again
Jute Disintegration – The table and reading again
Jute Disintegration – Ursula
Jute Disintegration – Ursula
Jute Disintegration – The table, Dasniya, Hartmut
Jute Disintegration – The table, Dasniya, Hartmut
Jute Disintegration – Reading, listening, suspense
Jute Disintegration – Reading, listening, suspense
Jute Disintegration – Andreas, Antek
Jute Disintegration – Andreas, Antek
Jute Disintegration – Suspended with table
Jute Disintegration – Suspended with table
Jute Disintegration – The entire mess
Jute Disintegration – The entire mess
Jute Disintegration – mess again
Jute Disintegration – mess again
Written on by

Jute Disintegration – An Installation

This Sunday, Dasniya and I, along with a few others are making some kind of performance/performance art/installation thing in Alte Kantine Wedding. It’s something of another rehearsal, and something of a thing that people could observe as an audience might. It has quite a few ropes, a table or two, some partial Japanese tea ceremony, some food, reading also (loud or quiet), and all the usual adventures in rope Dasniya and I have been working on for the last couple of years.

The vaguest of general ideas was that it might be nice to do all this with quite a few people, and over quite some hours, until it becomes mundane or unaffected. Yet it’s also something to perform, and so resembles the act of performing. I’m fairly sure I can’t say anything concrete of what it’s about, as I’ve decided it’s better to say nothing precise than to risk in saying something causing that to be what it manifests as. Nonetheless, anyone who has been reading me writing on this stuff, or knows my or Dasniya’s work will not find it entirely unfamiliar.

Sunday then. We are starting in the afternoon, and it will probably get interesting after 17h, or possibly 18h. You might like to come along and watch for a while. Café Pförtner will also be open as usual, so coming and going, missing things, hoping for something interesting, seeing things change, might work well with wandering around Uferhallen.

There are many people and many ropes. Some are tied/tying themselves to/on/ around/above/below a long table; others are self-suspended/partially suspended/ mostly on the ground; others might just have one rope wrapped around them. Time passes, and this changes. Someone/people might move from one place to another, suspend themselves or come to the ground, join or leave, form or disband a group.

It is an anarchy of shibari; repetition and difference. It is It is also somewhat baroque, or ‘dressed up’; something of an installation, something of a performance.

Written on by

Jute Disintegration – #1

Yesterday began proper something Dasniya and I have been talking about for a while – a performance/installation of ropes plus other things. It is somewhat inevitable, really, given the previous photo shoots, workshops, classes, where ideas obviously lead eventually to something like this.

We played with some tasks, instructions, methods or organizing ourselves and each other, of my newly-discovered “30 second responsible/unhelpful shibari figure technique” … I was reminded to think of Hans during Settlement, and the various improvisations and tasks that caused a certain inventiveness by exhausting the most obvious ideas and the subsequent ones also.

The last couple of hours found us arranged around a table, Rui reading from Burrough’s The Soft Machine, Dasniya having an idea for this with food as her next unshibari project, me trying to fit in and take photos, Monica, Antek, Ursula and Andreas also at seats, while Hartmut prepared Matcha for us.

Next Sunday, we repeat again. Possibly with more people, possibly with people watching.

Something of what it was…

Jute Disintegration – Rui reading
Jute Disintegration – Rui reading
Jute Disintegration – Andreas
Jute Disintegration – Andreas
Jute Disintegration – Rui and table
Jute Disintegration – Rui and table
Jute Disintegration – Monica and Antek
Jute Disintegration – Monica and Antek
Jute Disintegration – Dasniya's legs
Jute Disintegration – Dasniya’s legs
Jute Disintegration – The table
Jute Disintegration – The table
Jute Disintegration – Dasniya above table
Jute Disintegration – Dasniya above table
Jute Disintegration – Rui reading again
Jute Disintegration – Rui reading again
Jute Disintegration – Table tableau
Jute Disintegration – Table tableau
Jute Disintegration – Rui and Andreas reading
Jute Disintegration – Rui and Andreas reading
Jute Disintegration – Dasniya and Hartmut
Jute Disintegration – Dasniya and Hartmut
Jute Disintegration – Andreas
Jute Disintegration – Andreas
Written on by

Yoga & Shibari May

Yoga and Shibari for May! The usual Wednesday classes, plus the now- regular monthly self-suspension workshop, and two things I’ll write about separately shortly: the installation performance in Berlin, and Dasniya and I at ImPulsTanz.

For English please scroll down/ Please forward to people who might be interested

Bonsoir liebe Kolleg_innen!

inspiriert aus Paris findet Ihr anbei unsere Maiveranstaltungen. Jeden Mittwoch geht es in Berlin mit ‘Yoga & Shibari’ weiter, sowie mit einem jungen Performance Projekt zum partizipieren. Es handelt sich um eine Seilinstallation für die wir noch experimentierfreudige Teilnehmer_innen suchen. Außerdem freuen wir uns diesen Sommer beim TanzImPulsFestival in Wien zu unterrichten. Für mehr Details bitte runterscrolen.

Herzlich,

Dasniya und Frances

  1. Yoga & Shibari Berlin
  2. Self-Suspension Workshop-Berlin
  3. ‘Jute Disintegration’ 
  4. Einzelunterricht
  5. Sommerprogramm

Foto: Self Suspension Workshop Berlin, in den Uferhallen TEATRIS / Alte Kantine Wedding.

1. Yoga & Shibari 

Dieser vierstündige Workshop kombiniert Yoga mit der japanischen Seiltechnik ‘Shibari’
Workshoptext
Yoga Der Yoga Kurs kann unabhängig vom Shibari/Bondage besucht werden.

Termine: Mittwochs 9.,16.,23.,30. Mai 2012
Von: 19-23 Uhr
Ort: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Alte Kantine Wedding / TEATRIS, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin
U8 Pankstr/U9 Osloerstr.
Kosten: 20/15 Euro

2. Self-Suspension Workshop am Sonntag den 27. Mai, 14-20 Uhr. In diesem Kurs behalten wir die Seile in den eigenen Händen. Üben Aerial-Multitasking, das bedeutet Seil- und Atemtechniken mit physischen Intensitäten, Entspannungsmomenten und Kraft zu koordinieren. Und verwenden knotentechnisch traditionelle Figuren, sowie unseren liebgewonnenen Anarcho- Style.

Ort: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Alte Kantine Wedding / TEATRIS, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin
U8 Pankstr/U9 Osloerstr
Kosten: 50/40 Euro. Anmeldung und Info: email hidden; JavaScript is required

3. ’Jute Disintegration’ – Eine partizipative Seilinstallation

Es gibt viele Leute und viele Seile. Einige sind verflochten/binden sich selbst an/auf/unter und um einen langen Tisch herum; andere seilen sich zur Hälfte oder gänzlich in die Luft/bleiben ebenerdig. Wieder andere haben Seile um sich drapiert. Zeit vergeht und diese Dinge verändern sich. Möglicherweise bewegen sich Personen an andere Stellen, suspendieren Körperteile oder landen. Spiel mit oder lös die Gruppe auf!

Wann: Sonntag 13. und 20. Mai. Mehr Infos zu Proben und Teilnahme hier.

4. Einzelunterricht oder kleine Gruppen können flexible organisiert werden.

Mehr Infos unter: email hidden; JavaScript is required

5. Sommerprogramm 

Shibari/Yoga Workshop beim TanzImPulsFestival Wien: 30. Juli- 4.August; Mo-Fr jeweils 17-20 Uhr

Im Juli werden wir vorraussichtlich in Brüssel unterrichten. Die Infos gehen asap raus!

Bonsoir chère colleagues et amies!

back from Paris and happily inspired you find enclosed the May prgram. Every Wednesday there will be ‘Yoga and Shibari’ in Teatris, Berlin. Additionally we are working on a young installation performance and are still looking for people who want to participate. We are also happy to announce that we’ll be teaching at ImPulsTanzFestival this year. For more details please scroll down.

Hope to see you there!

Dasniya & Frances

1. Yoga & Shibari

The workshop combines principles of Yoga with the tying technique Nawa Shibari – Workshop Text (english) May 2012.pdf.
Yoga- Yoga can be practiced independently from Shibari /Bondage

When: 7-11 pm
Dates: Wednesdays, May  9, 16, 23, 30, 2012
Location:  Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Alte Kantine Wedding / TEATRIS, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin
U8 Pankstr/ U9 Osloerstr.
Costs: 20/15 Euro

2. Self-Suspension Workshop on Sunday May 27th, 14-20 Uhr. We will take apart the complex art of self-suspension. Coordinating rope technique, strength, breath, relaxation and physical intensities while being suspended with ropes. Using traditional tying figures and our beloved anarchic improvisation.

Location:  Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Alte Kantine Wedding / TEATRIS, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin
U8Pankstr/ U9 Osloerstr.
Costs: 50/40 Euro.
Registration: email hidden; JavaScript is required

3. ’Jute Disintegration’ – Eine partizipative Seilinstallation

There are many people and many ropes. Some are tied/tying themselves to/on/around/above/below a long table; others are self-suspended/partially suspended/mostly on the ground; others might just have one rope wrapped around them. Time passes, and this changes. Someone/people might move from one place to another, suspend themselves or come to the ground, join or leave, form or disband a group.

It is an anarchy of shibari; repetition and difference. It is It is also somewhat baroque, or ‘dressed up’; something of an installation, something of a performance.

When: Sunday 13th und 20th May. For more information and participation here.

4. Individual training or small groups can be organized spontaniously.

More information: email hidden; JavaScript is required

5. Summer program

Shibari/Yoga Workshop at ImPulsTanzFestival  in Vienna: July 30th -  4th Mo-Fr from 17-20 pm.

In July we will most likely teaching in Brussels. We’ll send the updates asap!

Dasniya Sommer TEATRIS Self-suspension Dasniya Sommer TEATRIS Self-suspension
Written on by

n+2 video at Yoga+Shibari

I shall watch it with eyes averted. Or, perhaps glimpse it every so often. Nonetheless, tomorrow night I won’t exit the room as I did on saturday at Bains. Still not quite ready to see the whole thing, and enjoying actively not thinking about the last two weeks (which is to say the intensity of those weeks is being busily devoured somewhere in my unconscious, so I can get on with such things as eating).

So, all the information is here: the n+2 dimensional space for n>1/ Yoga & Shibari Berlin Dezember

And here is the other pertinent stuff for the rest of the month:

1) Screening

Tomorrow we will be showing the video of the Performance ‘n+2 dimensional space for n >1′ after the ‘Yoga & Shibari’ Workshop. Frances and I have been in residence at Bains Connective, in Brussels. We have been trying to question conventional Shibari/Bondage tying and performance methods, in terms of constellation, technique and dynamic handling of ropes. Text

We would be very happy to see you, and talk after the screening. Tea and sweets will be there : )

Frances & Dasniya

When: Wednesday December 14th, appr. 22.30 h, after the workshop
Where: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Alte Kantine, Teatris, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin, U8 Pankstr/U9 Osloerstr, Map

2) Wednesdays ‘Yoga & Shibari’ in December:

December 14th and 21st from 19 -23 h in Wedding.

The workshop combines Yoga and Japanese rope Bondage… Class description

3) Shibari Technique Workshop

Sunday, December 18th, 14-20 h.

For every one who longs for rope inspiration before christmas, or enjoys a cosy Shibari Sunday. More information and registration: email hidden; JavaScript is required, costs: 40 euro

4) *Christmas Gift*:

Present a three hour workshop voucher to a friend, to get introduced to the art of tying, or present a rope session to yourself with Dasniya Sommer. More information: email hidden; JavaScript is required

n+2 negative space n+2 negative space
Written on by

the n+2 dimensional space for n>1 — beginning aftermath

… Where was I?

Brussels. It took longer to get from Schönefeld airport to home than from Brussels to Berlin. Monday was a day to pass without the hectic routine of the previous weeks. No rising in a stupor, no walking the route to and from Bains, no rehearsals on green dance floor, no baguettes and coffee for lunch, nor cooking in the kitchen.

Some organising of suitcases and luggage which results in meeting the weight allowance for what goes beneath in the hold, and transferring the excess to carry-on. Hence, carry-on weighs more than suitcase.

I meet Gala in Parvais/Vorplein around lunch. We begin with a coffee, continue with another, and talk for hours. One of the results of that is she is off to PAF Riems in a week, and we have plans perhaps to be there in late January. So it seems I’ll be passing through Brussels again soon.

We amble up to the commune for the market, and I discover the delights of Piadina. That it is made with pig lard only adds to the oral splendour. Dasniya joins us after a morning finding her way through an old cemetery south of Parc Dudin.

And then to finish packing, to airport, to sleep on the flight, to arrive.

the n+2 dimensional space the n+2 dimensional space

n+2 dimensional space – Dasniya n+2 dimensional space – Dasniya

n+2 Lab Out Chalkboard n+2 Lab Out

Written on by

the n+2 dimensional space for n>1 — day 10 & 11

It’s already over. We performed last night and today is Saturday, the residency finished. In-between now and Thursday morning, we spent most of our time in the studio, walking to and from, or asleep.

To Thursday then. A day for technical sortings out, with Silvano calmly attending to our needs, and the mess we had been accruing getting shifted to one side to be replaced with lights and other equipment. We worked out a couple more sections before, after, around this, and got through most of the list piled up before ‘tech run’.

After six o’clock, on our own, we prepared for our own run, which fell apart right where I begin tying Dasniya. This messy tying breeds uncertainty. Will the ropes hold or slip? Cinch in a bad place or begin sliding apart until all previous efforts are rendered null? It’s so unpredictable for me and the anxiety of it was making it impossible to even consider why I might be doing this, to concentrate on performing and directorial issues.

To make a performance in which the audience sees suffering or experiences it personally is one thing, and a thing which I’ve always had an attraction for. Against that, the last thing I want to do is cause the performers I work with to suffer, for the performance to be an unpleasant endurance. It’s easy enough when one is outside and observing something not working and causing pain to stop it, take a pause, try it in another way. When I’m inside it myself though, this ability vanishes. And so I became quite overwrought because of lengths of recalcitrant rope.

After much experimenting, failing, trying other approaches, we had something that worked, and commenced the run again. Alas what worked for me did not for Dasniya, and sliding the ropes off thwarted her.

Thursday finished around eleven in the evening, and Friday began twelve hours later.

…

Warming up three times, rehearsing some parts, getting through a dress run with Silvano, taking pauses, rummaging through the checklist, it starts, we wait, Jolivet begins, Ligeti, we progress through the scenes (five or seven depending on how you count), and it becomes over.

…

We have the videos, and some time next week photos from Silvano, so these shall make it here and elsewhere in due course. Today and Sunday we are still at Bains with a Yoga and Shibari workshop (which fortuitously has led to some China and South-East Asia connections), and Monday afternoon the flight (would that it were the train) t0 Berlin.

Some thank yous:

Bains Connective have made these two weeks possible and a joy in many ways. Dasniya and I would like to thank both Lilia and Diana for inviting us and our ropes. A particular mention must be for Silvano, for numerous things, not the least for operating sound, lights, filming with two cameras, taking photos, drilling suspension points, and keeping everything running smoothly. Also to Gala, who came in on Tuesday, watched through our first attempt at a run, gave an hour of of very appreciated notes, and cooked us dinner.

Written on by

the n+2 dimensional space for n>1 — day 9

The last proper day of rehearsal, where we have the entire time to ourselves. Tomorrow we find our way through a couple of tech runs, make something of light and sound, and have an approximation of a dress rehearsal. Friday is dealing with the detritus of that and fixing whatever remains for the evening showing.

I spent some time on my own, working my way through Gala’s notes, trying to change things into something I can feel comfortable with, analysing each scene to define the changing relationship to the ropes, getting stuck once more on the only scene without ropes. It wasn’t until around 2 o’clock, schedules for the coming days written up, all the impedimenta between us and Friday evening accounted for, that we began rehearsing.

Yesterday in the last time before our first run-through, we played through a scene of tying each other together, which ends on the floor and somehow became tormenting each other, savaging nipples, lips, nostrils with pinching toes. We worked through this again, from my self-bondage (for some reason I think of Ophelia and Gertrude, or more precisely of what I imagine Daniel Schlusser’s recent performance looked like), to paired humiliation (which is really not the right work, it’s more of causing discomfort with rope), and through this scene of shame.

I’d found a video of Osada Steve tying Madame Butterfly, and this roughness, along with some videos we’ve watched a while ago of Japanese Shibari masters grunting and muttering as they tie fell into this scene today. It’s a little rough, also painful, and has sometimes for me a disturbing air about it.

Dasniya and I swapped roles in the final scene in darkness. Now she ties part of the room into an installation while I am outside untying the remaining ropes. She thought this scene should go for around half an hour or more, depending on the first half.

I find myself spending much time disentangling nests of ropes that are the leftovers from each scene and run-through, coiling, laying them in order … We began a run-through around 6 o’clock, this time taking 45 minutes. I’m not sure if we were much slower, or if all the scenes together now last that long, or if yesterday we were just fast with nerves. It’s a lot for only a few days rehearsing.

Questions of music remain. We’re using André Jolivet at the beginning, and some Ligeti also – both wind chamber music compositions. Throbbing Gristle also make an appearance. This is, along with lights, something for tomorrow to sort out. I find it difficult being on the inside to hear the music; it’s not like we are counting to it, so it rapidly leaves my attention. Everything is reducing to technical questions, transitions, where to go when so it works with what comes later, all the usual arrangements of objects in space over time. What it looks like by this time tomorrow is probably mostly what it will be for Friday.

Written on by

the n+2 dimensional space for n>1 — day 8

… which was yesterday and last night.

A day of running through what we have up till now and making it all slightly more coherent, also finding one more idea come clear just before dinner, and assembling something of an order. So we have around half an hour of stuff at the moment, which will condense once we’ve sorted out how to get through it and added/subtracted things.

Gala came in around 1930 to watch this, us on green dance floor, lit through the glass back door from outside, and we tried to work our way through everything. Fairly obvious what needs attention, but nothing felt from the inside that it needed to be excised. An hour or so pre-dinner conversation between us three after going through the piece scene by scene, has given us plenty to work on.

We have a skeleton now, and what needs to be given attention today and tomorrow in the small time we have is clarifying what we’re doing, and how this shapes differences across each scene.

Dasniya thought the last scene in almost darkness should continue for half an hour or so, which could be beautiful depending on what happens before. Not for this week though, but hopefully we’ll have time to see where that might go once we find our way to Guangzhou.

It’s already morning and past time when we would be warming up.