For a new improvisational performance, dancer and choreographer Meg Stuart has collaborated with choreographer, performance and installation artist Maria F. Scaroni, and a diverse group of Berlin-based artists, to host a weeklong series of public encounters. Housed in Hebbel am Ufer’s hybrid event space – a space structured on notions of collaboration and interconnectivity – ‘City Lights – A continuous gathering’ will not form a closed, completed performance, but a site for ongoing discussion, exchange and experimentation.
Engaging with issues related to day-to-day existence in Berlin, the gatherings will consider processes of creation and interaction within this realm, assembled from the varied perspectives of artists, citizens, and those with temporary visas living in a state of uncertainty. Fostering a sense of simultaneity through multiple viewpoints and ideas, and initiating productive debate and interchange instead of seamless unity, the interactions will aim to deconstruct and reconstruct myths surrounding the pervasiveness of preconceived notions.
‘City Lights – A continuous gathering’ by Meg Stuart
The event will begin with a presentation and performance by neuroscientist-psychologist Tania Singer and performance artist-activist Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, as they explore issues of compassion and mutual caring, democracy, terrorism and domination. Their combined perspectives on neuroscience and queerness will facilitate imperative discussion and questions surrounding the ways we interact with, and care for, each other.
Stuart’s performative and collaborative projects meld diverse creative disciplines, experimenting with and investigating new modes and terrains for dance. Navigating the relationship between movement and narrative, dance and theater, her work is rooted in the uncertainty and vulnerability of the body, and examines manifestations of physical and emotional states. ‘City Lights’ follows her previously curated improvisation series ‘Crash Landing’ and ‘Auf den Tisch!’.
Integrating literature studies, media, dance and education, Scaroni works with body as material and explores durational experiences in her performances, laboratories and research. Focused on processes of improvisation and collaboration, she has worked closely with Stuart on various projects since 2011. Her work traverses the interactive systems and techniques of dance and learning, engaging theoretically and practically with interdisciplinary forms.
