AVA traces connections between the performer’s body and the body of water that is the ocean, exploring narratives of how hyperacidity and pollution change them both equally. The piece is informed by a personal experience impeding the artist’s access to her own voice and challenging her to seek reconnection with her inner power and voice. How can we learn to listen to the voice of the sea?

Through a flowing web of relationships between human and ocean, the performance attunes us to our aqueous origins and our ancestors’ memories and reminds us that our bodies – that consist mostly of water – are deeply entangled with the oceans of the world. AVA is not just an observation; it dives right into the rhythms of the ocean and calls upon us to transform our relationship with the global waters that form our mutual future.

‘With experiencing comes caring and with caring there’s hope.’ Sylvia Earle

AVA is part of the practices for potential futures work cycle.

Karin Pauer is a performer/choreographer based in Vienna. All her pieces are informed by exploring relationships, the in-between, empathy and togetherness. She negotiates these terms by combining embodied choreographic practices with language, visual art and live music. In 2008, she finished her bachelor’s degree (BA) in choreography at the ArtEZ Institute of Arts in Arnheim, the Netherlands. Since then, she has worked with choreographers, theatre directors, filmmakers and visual artists such as Doris Uhlich, Random Scream/Davis Freeman, Mike O’Connor, Maureen Kägi, Veronika Franz, Katrin Hornek and Aldo Giannotti. Since 2015, she has regularly co-operated with the Austrian-based dance company Liquid Loft/Chris Haring. Karin Pauer received the danceWEB scholarship in 2009 and the TURBO residency in 2012, both as part of the ImPulsTanz festival. In 2018, she was awarded the Austrian Federal Chancellor’s Office’s START scholarship. In 2020, she was nominated for the EU-wide choreography platform Creative Crossroads as part of Life Long Burning. Her own creations have been presented, among other places, at ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival, Tanzquartier Wien, donaufestival, brut Wien, the Wiener Festwochen, the MAMbo Museum in Bologna and various international festivals.