A wrinkly sheet of orange canvas covers the stage floor and even the rear wall. Objects and wall projections beneath model it into a monochromous relief. Mirjam Sögner’s new PURPLE SPHERES is inspired by Penique Productions’ Balloons as well as Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s famous wrapping projects. Objects are palpable behind or below the membrane, their shapes only vaguely discernible and present, mainly because we cannot see them. A fan goes off and the orange canvas begins to blow up between the objects. Things appear and disappear, present as physical traces through the performers.
PURPLE SPHERES is about objects that surround us every day. They determine what we are, do, and think, and still we don’t notice them before they are gone, damaged, or of a completely different shape. The performers, Mirjam Sögner and Luan de Lima da Silva, embark on a search for things in PURPLE SPHERES, taking us with them on different trails inside and on their bodies, as traces on yet other objects, as sounds, words, gestures. In the absence of the things, it is other layers of being that speak in this piece: our entanglement with them and at the same time their alienness. Come along on a journey into the enigmatic, which makes access more difficult the closer we get to it, in a time that centres more and more around the tangible while humanity acts on the scale of a geological force.
Mirjam Sögner works as a choreographer and coach between Berlin and Vienna. She studied contemporary dance, artistic research, and choreography at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna and ArtEZ in Arnhem, the Netherlands. Trainings in design thinking, systemic organisational development, and coaching followed. Mirjam Sögner’s pieces tour internationally and have been presented at venues such as Frascati, Amsterdam; Academy of Arts, Berlin; Dancehouse, Melbourne, Circuit-Est, Montréal; Goethe Institute, Ramallah; the Austrian Cultural Centre, Istanbul; brut Wien; Dansens Hus, Oslo; Rote Fabrik, Zurich; SOPHIENSÆLE, Berlin.
Artistic director, choreography, performance Mirjam Sögner
Performance Luan de Lima
Lighting design Martin Beeretz Set & costume design Sarah Sternat Music & sound design Zosia Hałubowska Production management Diethild Meier Consulting dramaturge Gabrielle Cram, Thomas Schaupp, Bruno Listopad Assistant Stine Gjestvang
A production by Mirjam Sögner in co-production with brut Wien.
Funded by the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Civil Service and Sport and supported by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Koproduktionsförderung Tanz, which is in turn funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media of Germany. Special thanks to Tanzfabrik Berlin.
The performance on April 23rd will be followed by an artist talk (moderated by Gabrielle Cram).
studio brut
Zieglergasse 25, 1070 Wien
accessible
Nordwestbahnstraße 8-10, 1200 Vienna
Subway: U1, U2 (Praterstern), U4 (Friedensbrücke), U6 (Dresdnerstraße) Tram: 5 (Nordwestbahnstraße) Bus: 5A (Wasnergasse)
barrierefrei
Währinger Straße 59, 1090 Vienna
Subway: U6 (Währinger Straße / Volksoper), Tram: 40, 41, 42 (Währinger Straße / Volksoper), 5, 33 (Spitalgasse), 37, 38, 40, 41, 42 (Spitalgasse / Währinger Straße)
accessible
Vogelweidplatz 13, 1150 Wien
Subway: U6 (Burggasse-Stadthalle) / Bus: 48A (Moeringgasse) / Tram: 9 (Camillo Sitte Gasse)
not accessible
Address will be announced after registration
not accessible
Zieglergasse 25, 1070 Wien
Subway: U3 (Zieglergasse), Tram: 49 (Westbahnstraße / Zieglergasse)
accessible
Zieglergasse 26A , 1070 Wien
U-Bahn: U3 (Zieglergasse), Tram: 49 (Westbahnstraße / Zieglergasse), Bus 13A (Neubaugasse)