Karin Pauer
LOW
Angry, loud, defiant Karin Pauer dives deep down into dark waters. With her new group piece LOW, the choreographer intensifies her occupation with the entangled fates of human bodies and marine eco-systems in a world defined by its impending collapse.
Building upon the solo piece AVA, which premiered in December 2024 at brut Wien, in which a lost voice was looking for connection, LOW unfolds in a landscape ravaged by exploitation, repression and decay. Three performers inhabit an installation in which the vestiges of industrial violence stick to surfaces and memories. This underwater wasteland is at the same time archive and oracle, a scar on earth insisting on being seen. To dive deep down in this case is a means not of escape but of encounter. LOW defies the logic of rulership and the amnesia of late capitalism. Karin Pauer does not aestheticise crisis, she moves right through it while tracing the brutal effects that deep-sea mining, seismic drilling and acoustic warfare have on ocean life. Within this debris, the performers – contentious, vulnerable and uncompromising – create a ritual of embodied protest. Rather than offering false comfort, LOW stays close to what is painful. For Karin Pauer, vulnerability is not a sign of defeat, but a place of radical resistance.
LOW is a choreography of absorption and entanglement, in which care is political, grief appears creative and the future seeps through the cracks. What does it mean to move with care within destruction?
LOW was created in collaboration with visual artist Eva Engelbert, musician Rozi Mákó, lighting designer Sveta Schwin and performers Hugo Le Brigand and Ixchel Mendoza Hernández.
LOW is part of Karin Pauer’s work cycle entitled practices for potential futures.
Karin Pauer is an Austrian performer/choreographer. She studied choreography at the ArtEZ Institute of Arts in Arnheim, the Netherlands, before starting an international career working with choreographers, filmmakers and visual artists such as Liquid Loft/Chris Haring, Davis Freeman, Mike O’Connor, Katrin Hornek and Maureen Kägi. Her own work been presented at ImPulsTanz, Tanzquartier Wien, the Donaufestival, the Wiener Festwochen, Kunstforum Wien, the Secession, Belvedere 21 and others. The co-productions THE SCORE (2020), WE WERE NEVER ONE (2022), HOUSE OF CONSTRUCTS (with Aldo Giannotti, 2024) and AVA (2024) were created at brut Wien.
Credits
Artistic direction & choreography Karin Pauer Creation & performance Hugo Le Brigand, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández, Karin Pauer Live sound Rozi Mákó Space Eva Engelbert Lighting design Sveta Schwin Production management mollusca productions Conversation partners Aldo Giannotti, Anna Mendelssohn Administration Takelage
A co-production by Kunstverein ARGO/Karin Pauer and brut Wien.
Funded by the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs (MA7) and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport (BMWKMS).
Dates & Tickets
October 2025
Sold out
€ 22/€ 18/€ 14 * Aperitivo at 19:30 & artist talk after the performance, moderation: Astrid Peterle
€ 22/€ 18/€ 14
brut nordwest
Nordwestbahnstraße 8-10, 1200 Vienna
accessible
Info
On Fri. 10.10., there will be an Aperitivo at 19:30 and an artist talk after the performance, moderation: Astrid Peterle.
Content notes
The performance uses loud sound and some theatrical fog at certain moments.
Downloads
Abendprogramm Karin Pauer – LOW (PDF)
Event recommendations
Season Opening Party
with a DJ set by MALENCIAGA
Aperitivo
to LOW by Karin Pauer, moderation: Astrid Peterle
Lens Kühleitner & Olivia Hild
trace my layers, thrust your guts
Magazin
