ATTENTION: The performance is cancelled due to illness. More infos coming soon.
The Zukunftshof (‘future farm’) at the southern end of the city. There’s old and new farming, and the wheat sown in the winter is still green on a 10x10 metre field outside the barn. Inside the barn, the performer is hard at work on a big piece of dough. Extensive and stretched ultra-thin, the dough encloses her body like a second skin, it is kneaded and stretched, it tears, rises, and flies across the room in little flips. She Does Dough, Dough Does Her attempts to carve out the sensual component of dough while at the same time highlighting its main ingredient, wheat, and its cultural journey throughout history, its evolutionary biology, its processes of socialisation and cultivation. In the end, we won’t know whether the performer does the dough or the dough does her…
Dough as a bridge from the present back to human settlement in the region around Mesopotamia, where the cropping, storing, and processing of grains played a key role. Back to the origins of civilisation as we know it, when patriarchal structures emerged, and back to a domestication process that changed the morphology and behaviour of animals, plants, and humans forever; essentially always drawing on standardised, targeted, monitored reproduction. The Zukunftshof is a visionary urban agricultural concept in the former Haschahof in Vienna’s Favoriten district. The old four-sided farmyard located where the city of Vienna transitions into farmland, resembles a time capsule. It’s a relic from the 19th century and a place of practiced utopias. It offers ample possibilities for artist Jasmin Hoffer – and for the dough, in which something new might come to life. By entering into some sort of relationship.
The performance will take place in co-operation with the agri_culture initiative that has undertaken to encourage socio-ecological change via gardening, agriculture, and art. The initiative’s work is based on a non-exploitative, egalitarian attitude towards all living beings in the territory, from the components and microogranisms of the soil to the crops and any old hare that might hop by.
The wheat poem:
Dear wheat,
Our paths have been crossing for 10,000 years
You were growing wild – I was free to choose
I made a hole in the ground and covered you with earth – your first home
Manipulated your genetic code and your morphology
Made you depend on me harvesting you – your spikelets firm and closed
I gave up mobility, and sealed my hymen – to become a harvested woman, an allocated wife
Jasmin Hoffer is a dancer, choreographer, and performance artist. She lives and works in Vienna. In 2014, she achieved her master’s degree in dance education in a contemporary context and the Cologne University of Music and Dance. Before that, she studied dance at the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance in Dundee and painting in the masterclass for painting at the Ortweinschule in Graz. In 2018, she received the Austrian Federal Chancellor’s Office’s START scholarship. Her performing and teaching took her to Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, Palestine, and the United States. In varying constellations and formats, she works with artists such as Liv Schellander, Sara Lanner, Elena Kristofor, Oleg Soulimenko, and Alfredo Barsuglia. Her works have been presented at Tanzquartier Wien, brut Wien, and WUK performing arts.
Performance, dance, concept Jasmin Hoffer Dough, set design Nicola Schößler Host, sustainability consultant, set design Johannes Wiener Consulting dramaturgy Laia Fabre, Elizabeth Ward Artistic advice Oleg Soulimenko Text support Rosemarie Poiarkov Video design Elena Tikhonova Sound design Jakob Rüdisser
Thanks to Deborah Hazler, Nanina Kotlowski, Oleg Soulimenko, Charlotta Ruth, Larissa Kramarek
In co-operation with agri_culture, Bears in the Park, Studio Matsune, the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.
Accompanying programme to the performance She does Dough, Dough does Her
Thu, May 11: Bonfire and stick bread after the performance
Sat, May 13: Discussion following the performance: Modes of (Re)production with Caitlin McDonough-Goldstein and Miguel Valllebueno, molecular and evolutionary evolutionary biology perspectives
Sun, May 14: Childcare during the performance. Registration: hoffer.jasmin02@gmail.com / Intervention Adding salt to the dough to make it durable and reusable following the performance
brut at Zukunftshof
Rosiwalgasse 41–43, 1100 Vienna
accessible
Nordwestbahnstraße 8-10, 1200 Vienna
Subway: U1, U2 (Praterstern), U4 (Friedensbrücke), U6 (Dresdnerstraße) Tram: 5 (Nordwestbahnstraße) Bus: 5A (Wasnergasse)
accessible
Vogelweidplatz 13, 1150 Wien
Subway: U6 (Burggasse-Stadthalle) / Bus: 48A (Moeringgasse) / Tram: 9 (Camillo Sitte Gasse)
not accessible
Zieglergasse 25, 1070 Wien
Subway: U3 (Zieglergasse), Tram: 49 (Westbahnstraße / Zieglergasse)