The performers explore ghostly matter, shades of perception, vanishing qualities and darkness permeated by polyphonic flickering and deep silence. By approaching the matter of bodies on a molecular level, millions of interconnected cells appear, oscillating in everlasting sound. The electrically charged void within each atom is vibrationally entangled with the void in outer space.

Quantum physicist Karen Barad states, that the void is not empty, but rather inhabited by virtual particles shifting between being and non-being. Particles no longer take space in the void, they are constitutively entangled with it, like bodies are entangled with their surroundings, even beyond death. Vibrant Void looks at void as transcendent and transformative matter, exploring the interconnectedness of end and endlessness, matter and non-matter, Euclidean space of the black box and the vastness outer space.

Capitalist attempts to avoid death cumulate to everlasting health paradigms and plastic chirurgical infinite youth. Even death is expensive – insurance companies advertise to plan ahead of death, by freezing deceased bodies, promising eternal life. Instead of attempting to control the future, Vibrant Void connects with the density of the past to sense movements, feelings, stories and memories that reverberate today.

Content Note

The performance will partly take place in darkness, stroboscopic effects will be used. Conversations around after life and death are part of this piece.

            Mael Blau (they/them) is a visual artist and costume designer, who studied Expanded Space at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with focus on transmediality and interdisciplinary art at the School of Art Vienna. Maels performative and textile artistic works, unfold in the inbetween dance, theater, film and fashion, following the idea of shapeshifting and the constant fluidity of matter. Mael Blaus costumes have been shown at Impulstanz Vienna (Tanz 2022), brut Vienna (PoLy-Mirrors 2022), Kosmos Theater Vienna (Milchfrau 2022, SHE HE ME 2019, Begehren 2018), Dschungel Vienna (The Milky Way 2024, On the other side 2020).

            Ekke Hekles (he/him) is a performer and actor from Estonia, working in theater and film productions. He graduated acting at Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in 2020. Since then, he has worked as an actor in a performance arts theatre called Tartu Uus Theatre (Ma jään kaevu 2023, Mis saab siis, kui meid enam ei ole? 2023, Stereo 2022, Siili poomine 2022, Lood 2021). Ekke Hekles was an actor within the movie The Invisible Fight (2023), O2 (2020) und 3rd Octve F (2022).

            Claudia Lomoschitz (she/her) is a choreographer and visual artist born in Vienna, who works collaborative and research based on counter-hegemonic reproductive phantasies. She graduated Performance Studies at the University of Hamburg in collaboration with Kampnagel Hamburg and studied at the at the Royal Danish Academy of Copenhagen and the Academy of fine Arts Vienna, where she currently teaches. Her works have been shown at Ice Hot Oslo (Cumulus, 2024), Kunsthalle Vienna (Lactans, 2023), Art Hub Copenhagen (Lunch Lecture, 2023), Kunstraum Niederösterreich (PARTUS Gyno Bitch Tits, 2021), Tanzquartier Vienna (G.E.L., 2021), brut Vienna (Soft Skills, 2020), Belvedere 21 (Amazon, 2019) and Kampnagel Hamburg (Induced Lactation, 2017).

            Ursula M. Lücke (she/her) is an artist, cultural/image scientist and performer based in Linz and Hamburg, with a focus on aquatic and terrestrial spaces. She studied art and ecology at the University of Lüneburg, graduated her philosophy doctorate at Leuphana University and is educated as goldsmith. Her artistic work is rooted in hydrophilic visual studies, is research-based, queer and participatory. She has exhibited at the Deutsches Hafenmuseum – SHMH, the Residenzmuseum Celle, Linz Kultur, FIFTITU%, the Kunsthalle Linz, the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt and the Kunstarchiv Beeskow, among others. www.ursulaluecke.com

            Riin Maide is an artist and stage designer from Tallin. Her work is inspired by sentimental experience, recreating poetical fantasies. Her installations talk about memory and presence by using various graphic mediums but also including performative elements. Riin Maide graduated the Graphic Arts BA at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and studied scenography in DAMU, Prague. Riin is one of the winners of the Young Artist Prize of EAA 2020.

            Elena Riener (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist from Vienna, who works in a field of tension between poetry, sculpture, fine- and conceptual art. She graduated the photography programme at Grafische Vienna and studied textile design at the Fashion School Schloss Hetzendorf. Since 2022 she studies TransArts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her works have been shown in various exhibitions, such as Kunstzelle WUK (2024), The Basement (2022), Horizonte Zinst (2020).

            Liv Schellander (she/her) is a freelance dancer, performer, choreographer, Somatic Experiencing (SE)® practitioner and facilitator. She develops performative works, teaches and collaborates with artists in various constellations. She has been touring as performer in SOILED by Michael Turinsky since 2022. Her artistic collaboration with Fia/Sophia Neises on With Or Without You, a dance performance that invites you into spaces of access intimacy took place in 2023. Recently, she has become increasingly interested in exploring the aesthetics of access and multisensory artistic work in the performing arts.

            Sveta Schwin (she/her) works as a lighting designer and theater director in Vienna. She studied theater, film and media studies at the University of Vienna and performing arts at the Kunststudienstätte Ottersberg. In 2018 her work Seidenspinner has been shown at Theater Spielraum in Vienna. She has worked as a light designer on numerous productions at WUK Wien, brut Wien and Tanzquartier Wien. She has worked as a lighting technician at the Wiener Festwochen, ImpulsTanzWien and for independent productions, including Theater Spielraum and MQ Wien.

            Crystal Wall (they/them, she/her) touches on the space between performance and singing, poetry and ritual, folk culture and queerness. Crystal relates (alpine) folk customs to queerness and infuses them with a pleasurable process of transformation until new performative rituals emerge. Their sonorous explorations cultivate an emphasis on wicked pitches and multi-modulated voices, and soft frilled screams. Through embodied polyphony and collective storytellings her/their work unravels aqueous poetic soundings and luring chants. Since 2019 in deep collaboration with the artist Andreea Vladut they are engaging in performative research on mourning rituals and narrations of loss and vulnerability.