Luca Bonamore & Francesca Valeria Karmrodt – LABOR DER ZÄRTLICHKEIT (LAB OF ENDEARMENT)

LABOR DER ZÄRTLICHKEIT (LAB OF TENDERNESS ) swings between physicality, language, and media art. Based on the setting of Herzblatt, the German version of American flirting show The Dating Game that was popular up to the mid-2000s, the absurdities of western dating are spoofed in their consumer-oriented logic. Performers Luca Bonamore and Francesca Valeria Kamrodt explore forms of staging and vulnerability in interpersonal relationships and negotiate intimacy in its political dimensions on stage.

What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, no more. Love and the quests for it today usually take place according to the rules of the market. ‘Fast romances’ and ‘situationships’ are key aspects of how we interact in these capitalist times. Looking for desire and affection, we present ourselves as charming, independent, witty, you name it, permanently performing in real and virtual spaces with our competing bodies. What happens if two people drop all social pretence to come closer to one another as unprotected individuals with all their shortcomings? What do spaces of endearment look like, if we are supposed to be with each other without consuming each other? In LAB OF TENDERNESS, performers Luca Bonamore and Francesca Valeria Karmrodt, immersed in elaborate 3-D animations, bring intimacy from the private to the public sphere, playing with breaks in perfect dating, and celebrating collective fragility.

Luca Bonamore (he/him) is a dancer, performance artist, and dance educator. In the independent scene, he is best known by his pseudonym Pornamore. In various constellations, he has created pieces for Garage Grande as well as the Vienna Museumsquartier. He also appeared in productions by Dschungel Wien, Max-Reinhardt-Seminar, Stand 129, and Unicorn Art – Verein für Tanztheater. Currently, Luca is a student of contemporary dance education at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. His main interest is the intersection between, and combination of, different art forms as well as dealing with issues of gender roles and expression.

Francesca Valeria Karmrodt (she/her) is a dancer, performer, and video artist. In her interdisciplinary practice, she deals with the body and digital space as communicators of symptoms of our post-modern society. Approaches from social, media, and gender theory are found in her pieces. In 2022, she is supported by the National Performance Network of Germany and is one of the Research Artists of TaikaBox Finland in the field of dance and new technologies. She studied contemporary dance education at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna and was a guest lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and at HFF in Munich.

-----------------

Lisa Bunderla/Alina Bertha – Jona and Lot –  Postparadiesische Potenz (Post-paradise Potency)

Taking Adam and Eve’s original sin as a starting point, Lisa Bunderla and Alina Bertha try to grasp suppressing mechanisms in their dance performance Jona and Lot. How are we doing in terms of lust and potency? How much shame, craving for admiration and conformism are we carrying with us and inside us? What prevents us from unfolding our full potency and, on the other hand, how can we get rid of it?

Let’s take a look at the world’s most read book. How has it influenced our perception of the predominantly Christian world and its apparent order? What were the consequences of creation and the Fall of Man? Systems of dominion were established by introducing bans and punishments. Binarity and, by extension, heteronormativity were constructed. Sex was frowned upon as evil. How are we doing in this world in terms of lust and potency? What do we believe are our options and what are they really? What happens when it is no longer the space with its set of rules that shapes the human, but the human becomes the one to shape the space? Let’s give it a try and let Jonah and Lot have a taste of the forbidden fruit here and now.

Lisa Bunderla studied contemporary dance education at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. Her artistic research is rooted in potential utopias of queer-feminist literature, which she examines through the clash of bodies. Alina Bertha performs, choreographs, and teaches. She collaborates with the likes of Sara-Lisa Bals, Lisa Bunderla, Daphna Horenczyk, Elena Kristofor, Fanny Sorgo, and Laura Sperl. Alina studied dance in London, Linz, and Leeds.