Everything is falling apart. Everything is porous – there is something in between – between the nothing. Nora Tormann explores what this is with physical prospects. The performance, which will be shown for the first time in front of a live audience from 7 to 9 October at the Culterim, the former air-raid shelter in Charlottenburg, deals with the experience of breaking – of crumbling.
Image above: courtesy of Nora Tormann
The climate crisis, drilling capitalism and the still dominant patriarchy at our backs – all this subliminal and yet obvious violence and destruction, leaves its mark on the individual body and that of our environment – the warning is ominously close. With queer perspectives on grief and rage, physical prospects starts from one’s own vulnerability and in it looks for ways to resist this violence. What can such resistance look like, how does it feel and how does it materialise?
Nora Tormann puts the body into interaction with conceptual stage designs. In physical prospects, these are concrete sculptures and dozens of kilos of moss – and as a further element, a sound bubble is created that places the spectators in an acoustic space in between and integrates them into the porous landscape.
Influenced by a long stay in Iceland, where Nora also met Helena Rauch (stage design), Zofia Tomczyk (sound design) and Elsa Mencagli (artistic assistance), the experiences gathered around infinite, barren landscapes and a far-reaching silence. In contrast: the unpredictable destructive force of the climate crisis.
The shared experience sets the aesthetic and acoustic framework for physical prospects – which will now unfold and deepen anew in the former air-raid shelter at Kaiserdamm 102. In the process, the solo choreography not only sets the body in motion, but also the materials, so that at times the entire landscape around it shatters. Sometimes the Nora Tormann dissolves out – sometimes the body dynamically adapts to the movement of the surroundings. In the process, a dialogue and the field of tension between the elements of the performance becomes perceptible: “I am fascinated by how porosity makes the fragility of materials, and the external influences that affect them, visible and at the same time holds the potential of changeability and thus unpredictability. I also see in it a metaphor for the queer perspective of finding space for experimental counter-designs in the voids of a fragile normativity – paths towards possible utopias,” says Nora Tormann.
physical prospects is a very thoughtful piece, perhaps even one that thinks without words, but with the body and its sensations.
Choreography & Performance & Costume Design: Nora Tormann // Set Design: Helena Rauch // Sound Design: Zofía Tomczyk // Lighting Design: Raquel Rosildete // Choreographic Assistant: Soroa Lear // Artistic Assistant: Elsa Mencagli // Production Manager: Chris Wohlrab // Press Relations: Anita Goß // Public Relations: Aurora Kellermann // Video Documentation: Svenja Simone Schulte // Graphics: Ksenia Apresian // Sound engineering: Antto Logy // Photos: Oliver Look
Nora Tormann works with performance, choreography and text. The focus of Nora’s choreographic work is the investigation of bodies as settings for political and philosophical treatises: How do ideological regimes and bodies shape each other? Nora’s practice thereby moves at the interface of artistic and theoretical research and questions the paradigms that constitute the respective fields of knowledge.
Nora’s latest work TURN – Kartographie einer Bewegung premiered as a choreographic audio walk in April 2022 at Hasenheide. Previously she created physical prospects (ACUD Theater Berlin, 2021) and the solo what remains washes away (Celestial Bodies Performing Arts Festival Reykjavík, 2019).
As a dance dramaturge, Nora has worked with the dance collective “Grupo Oito”, the performance company for young audiences “in back” and solo artists since 2019. Nora is co-founder of CELESTIAL BODIES, a Europe-wide platform for artists.
Nora has completed a Master’s degree in Performing Arts (2019 in Reykjavík) and a Bachelor’s degree with a focus on political theory, gender studies and sociology (2016 in Maastricht and Guadalajara). In 2021, Nora received scholarships from the Fonds Darstellende Künste as well as the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland and has also been supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe with a cultural exchange scholarship since 2022. In 2022, Nora will also be working in residence at the tanzhaus nrw.
About the Tatwerk
TATWERK sees itself as a laboratory for exploring aesthetic potentials and forms a diverse community as an incubator of new ideas, perspectives and practices.
The focus is on political and poetic projects, visionary concepts that reflect and question social dynamics and introduce new working methods and formats to the scene based on their questions.
At TATWERK, artists perform in different formats: there are premieres and guest performances, but also analogue and digital work shows and work-in-progress. At our events, we welcome a diverse audience that wants to go on a voyage of discovery into the depths of contemporary performing arts.
Since spring 2022, TATWERK has also been focusing its programme on public space and non-theatrical places and, together with the artists, exploring the possibilities of the performing arts beyond its own premises.
WHERE?
Culterim – Former air-raid shelter Charlottenburg, Kaiserdamm 102, 14057 Berlin-Charlottenburg
WHEN?
Friday, 7 October to Sunday, 9 October 2022
COST?
15 EUR / reduced 10 EUR (plus advance booking fee)
