Adam Man with Judith Hamann & Michiyasu Furutani
Reforest
Adam Man stages landscapes like others stage plays or operas. For Reforest, the interdisciplinary artist joined up with musician Judith Hamann and butoh dancer Michiyasu Furutani to repeatedly visit and document a forest suffering from the effects of the climate catastrophe. The endeavour has resulted in an artfully designed landscape made of texts, videos, sound, dance, language and collected artifacts from ill-treated nature. Reforest brings the forest to the theatre, displaying the disaster, but also sparking some hope.
Over one year, artist Adam Man paid repeated visits to a forest in Carinthia with cellist Judith Hamann and butoh dancer Michiyasu Furutani. It is a forest strained and damaged by the man-made climate catastrophe. Up close and directly, the trio learned what forest fires, bark beetles and storms are capable of. They recorded it all on camera, composed music and collected everything: structures, sounds, branches, bone fragments, roots and artifacts. Now, Adam Man and his team bring this forest into the theatrical space. Reforest is the artistic transmission of an encounter with a regular patch of earth. An encounter designed to show what the world and our disaster are like, but also to remind us of a future: the cycle of regrowth and return – in spite of it all.
‘Live environments’ is what Adam Man calls his walk-in installations that also serve as performance sets. Rather than directing plays or musical pieces, he stages a specific landscape and brings the audience in touch with it. As an installation, Reforest reflects the vertical structure of the forest. It is a walk-in space made of texts, videos, sound, movement, dance, language and collected objects. Landscape, body and mythology come together in this forest space to celebrate a kind of reforestation. The piece is also a place for emotions: grief, anger, loss, disorientation, but also connection, dedication, love and surprise. It invites audiences to join the performers in experiencing what is alive within and outside of us.
“The world is in a terrible state, and we go into the woods. Sounds like the typical escapism cliché, doesn’t it? Only the forest is not a refuge, not a place to hide from the world. Where do we go when we go into the woods today?”
In his work, Adam Man uses live performance, video and text. For the past ten years, he has mostly worked outdoors to find a new connection between body and landscape – often together with dances and performers who deal with/in the environment. Adam Man’s practice is highly multidisciplinary. In all the media he uses, he tries to reconnect the inside with the outside and analyses our contemporary geo-existence as human bodies on earth. www.adamman.com
Judith Hamann is a composer, cellist and performer who was born in Australia and currently lives in Berlin. Her oeuvre includes performances, electro-acoustic compositions, site-specific generative pieces and microtonal systems in a process-based creative practice. www.judith-hamann.com
As a butoh dancer, Michiyasu Furutani combines improvisation with a transdisciplinary approach to refine his artistic instruments. His unique synthesis of butoh, transdisciplinary collaboration and theoretical insights highlights his commitment to pushing artistic boundaries and exploring the complex interconnections within the somatic landscape of our shared biosphere. https://7y2.net/about/
Accessibility
The audience are free to move around the space.
Credits
Idea, set design, video installation, text & camera Adam Man Video, live performance, 3D prints, camera & costume design Michiyasu Furutani Sound art & live concert Judith Hamann Light Theresia Hausner
Most of the materials in Reforest are recycled, some of them originating from previous works. In this context, Adam Man would like to thank Moritz Majce for allowing Adam Man to reuse elements from joint projects (www.moritzmajcesandraman.com) and for the long-standing connection that has shaped Adam Man’s work.
A co-production by Verein Katapult and brut Wien.
Funded by the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs (MA7) and the Province of Carinthia’s Department of Cultural Affairs.
Dates & Tickets
brut nordwest
Nordwestbahnstraße 8-10, 1200 Vienna
accessible
Info
On Fri. 12.12., the show will be followed by an artist talk, moderation: Flori Gugger.
Content notes
The performance contains some nudity and moments of loud sound.
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