Julia Müllner / Katharina Senk & Tanja Erhart
Handle with care selected by BEATE
Contributions by Julia Müllner/Katharina Senk & Tanja Erhart
BEATE is short for BRUT’S ENGAGED AUDIENCE as THEATRE EXPERTS. Don’t worry, this is not as complicated as it sounds. As BEATE members, committed brut visitors get a particularly close look at artistic and administrative processes, thus becoming a group of experts capable of adding new points of view to brut’s diverse programme. In regular gatherings over the entire season, BEATE visit rehearsals, showings and performances, discuss and reflect on them, talk to artists and experts and write pieces for the online magazine. During imagetanz 2020, the group was given the important special assignment to choose two acts for the programme of Handle with Care Selected by BEATE. The members visited showings throughout the season and made proposals of their own before deciding in a final vote that the duo Tanja Erhart & Katharina Senk as well as artist Julia Müllner should be invited.
Julia Müllner – gathering bacteria in my carrier bag
in German
Gathering bacteria in my carrier bag invites you to a bubbly, collective encounter with microorganisms. In her work, Julia Müllner deals with fermentation, which is a form of microbial transformation and preservation. The process of fermentation becomes a performance exploring what microbes can teach us about how to live together.
Julia Müllner’s carrier bag becomes a container for knowledge and nonsense to experiment with processes of transformation. Ideas, sketches and lines of thought accumulate like bacteria and demand care. SCOBY the mother bacterium gets settled, grows, transforms and forms ties. There is a symbolic value in the gentle care of organisms that allows us to canvass ideas on how to live together – a vast group of themes that are approached on a microscopic level. What metaphoric answers hide in the symbiosis of fungal cultures and nutrients? How can a relationship grow without any hierarchies? In addition to this performative approach, there will be a printed booklet to preserve the entire process for eternity.
Julia Müllner lives in Vienna and works as a freelance dancer. In 2019, she concluded her studies of dance and choreography at the Danish National School of Performing Arts in Copenhagen. She also received the 2019 training scholarship at Tanzquartier Wien and the 2020 danceWEB scholarship for the ImPulsTanz festival. Julia works in various collaborations as well as on solo projects.
Katharina Senk & Tanja Erhart – j_e_n_g_a
in German, English and Austrian Sign Language
In their dance performance j_e_n_g_a, three-legged Tanja Erhart and two-legged Katharina Senk are all about pleasure – pleasure as a radical interface in the discourse between disability and feminism and pleasure as a delightful resource of movement in the interaction with Tanja’s crutches. Those two crutches, jointly with the two dancers and the audience, create a multi-sensory game that makes us feel what interdependence means while at the same time bringing out the pleasure of joint radical movement.
Tanja Erhart, London-based Austrian, defines herself as a crip – i.e. disabled and chronically ill – dancer and cultural anthropologist. She performed worldwide in pieces by Claire Cunningham, Michael Turinsky, the Candoco Dance Company and many more. Currently, Tanja is exploring the movement languages of her three different body minds: with her wheel-chair, with one leg, or with three legs a.k.a. with crutches. She is also discovering the accessibility and pleasure activist in her as she tirelessly engages in discussions on dance, ableism, access and care.
Katharina Senk is an Austrian dance artist who lives in Vienna. She performed in pieces by artists of the likes of Doris Uhlich, Florentina Holzinger and Georg Blaschke. In her art, Katharina works to combine her interests in (post-)humanism, feminism and social justice with her knowledge in the fields of dance, movement and martial arts. In collaborations with her colleague Tanja Erhart, she is dedicated to exploring sensual dance practices with “(assistive) objects”.
BEATE, brut’s audience club, is an initiative born in the context of Be SpectACTive!
Be SpectACTive! is a comprehensive European co-operation project co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme. It is active in the performing arts as it presents art productions and participatory practices with the aim of involving citizens and spectators in creative and organisational processes. Members include European festivals, theatres, cultural organisations, universities and one research centre.
Credits
gathering bacteria in my carrier bag:
Concept and performance Julia Müllner Sound/music Christa Wall Outside eye Alix Eynaudi Thanks to Valerie Ludwig Costume design Attila Lajos
With the kind support of the Federal Province of Lower Austria’s Department of Cultural Affairs.
j_e_n_g_a:
Concept, choreography, performance Tanja Erhart, Katharina Senk Production mollusca productions Technical support Charles Matthews Light design Sabine Wiesenbauer
With the kind support of the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport, METAL Culture UK, Im_flieger, beat1060 Wien, D.ID – Dance Identity and ImPulsTanz Festival.
Dates & Tickets
January 2021
Fully booked
Event recommendations
Tanja Erhart & Katharina Senk
j_e_n_g_a (postponed)
Doris Uhlich
TANK / site specific (postponed)
Magazin
Katharina Senk & Tanja Erhart: CROSS _ BORDER _ BALANCE – A GAME!
Julia Müllner – gathering encounters
