The Neue Nationalgalerie is presenting the third edition of its PERFORM! series on the occasion of Berlin Art Week. As in previous years, a historically groundbreaking performance forms the core of the program: this year Yvonne Rainer’s dance piece “Trio A”. From Wednesday, September 11 to Sunday, September 15, 2024, the piece will be performed several times a day in the upper hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie. Further highlights presented by PERFORM! 2024 will present the performance “Galaxy Parade” by Esben Weile Kjær (*1992, Copenhagen) on Thursday, September 12, which was created at the invitation of the Neue Nationalgalerie and in collaboration with the Berlin curator and artist collective TRAUMA. On Saturday, September 14, 2024, the site-specific concert performance “Edge” by experimental composer and saxophone virtuoso Bendik Giske (*1982 Oslo) will conclude this year’s SOUND IN THE GARDEN series around the sculpture garden of the Neue Nationalgalerie.
Image above: Yvonne Rainer, TRIO A, 1978 © 2024 Yvonne Rainer. Courtesy Video Data Bank, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The performance TRIO A (1966) by American artist, choreographer and dancer Yonne Rainer (born 1934) is one of the most influential choreographies of the 20th century. The four-and-a-half to five-minute sequence of individual movements that are never repeated. Although the dance appears effortless, it is difficult to learn due to the precise articulation of hands, arms, shoulders, feet and legs. The performance is Rainer’s best-known work, which revolutionized contemporary dance in the 1960s in parallel with the developments of Minimal Art.
For the past two years, the Neue Nationalgalerie has organized the PERFORM!
In the most recent edition, the 2023 festival presented historical positions such as Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece” (1964) and contemporary performances by Göksu Kunak, among others. Previously, in 2022, the important work “Huddle” (1961) by Simone Forti formed the historical focus of the festival, accompanied by contemporary contributions by Miles Greenberg, among others.
PERFORM! is curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Director, Neue Nationalgalerie with Lisa Botti, Curator, Neue Nationalgalerie and Gregor Quack, Volkswagen Group Fellow, Freunde der Nationalgalerie e.V.
Program PERFORM! 2024
Participation in all events is free of charge. All performances and events take place in areas of the museum that are also accessible without a ticket. In the event of limited capacity, admission will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis. Participation without registration, unless otherwise stated.
Wednesday, September 11 – Sunday, September 15, 2024, 3 pm, 4 pm and 5 pm each day
Yvonne Rainer: “Trio A” (1966)
Friday, September 13, 2024, 6 pm
“Muscle Memory”: Talk on dance with Sara Wookey and participating dancers, followed by a reception
Rainer performed the piece later known as “Trio A” in 1966 as a trio with the New York choreographers David Gordon and Steve Paxton–at that time still under the title “The Mind is a Muscle, Part 1”. At the premiere in the Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan, the dancers performed the same sequence of movements twice in succession. They were not accompanied by restrained music, but merely by the sound of several wooden slats being thrown from a balcony one after the other. Since then, “Trio A” has been performed again and again in different versions, sometimes integrated into other pieces by Rainer or adapted and interpreted by other choreographers. With the diversity of her pieces, the unusually unpretentious movement sequences and dancers with their eyes turned away from the audience, Rainer intervened in the existing viewing habits of many dance genres and thus attempted to disrupt their consumability, which is often characterized by problematic gender dynamics. In contrast to the often spectacular and highly athletic aesthetics of ballet and modern dance and the associated physical ideal, “Trio A” contrasted a physicality freed from all showmanship and thus became one of the most influential pieces of postmodern dance.
Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934 in San Francisco) is an American choreographer, dancer and filmmaker. Her work is considered a pioneer of many trends in dance and performance art.
For the performance of “Trio A” by other dancers, Yvonne Rainer has developed a transfer concept with the New York non-profit organization Performa. For the performance at Berlin Art Week, the New York dancer Sara Wookey will pass the choreography on to a group of Berlin-based dancers as a “transmitter” in accordance with these regulations: Esther Cowens, Emily Ranford, and Fred Gehrig.
Thursday, September 12, 2024, 6 – 8 pm
Esben Weile Kjær: “Galaxy Parade” in cooperation with TRAUMA
“Galaxy Parade” is a new performance developed by Danish artist and theater maker Esben Weile Kjær in collaboration with the Berlin collective TRAUMA and at the invitation of the Neue Nationalgalerie. In this performance, conceived especially for the terrace of the iconic Mies van der Rohe building, Kjær focuses on the parade as a perfor-mative-creative form and as a social phenomenon. Parades and processions have always marked particularly important occasions and ideas in a wide variety of cultural contexts, from military pageantry to popular freedom fights, from carnivals to funerals.
Kjaer and TRAUMA are inviting various Berlin clubs, associations and teams to take part in a performance lasting several hours. Performers include a marching band, a cheerleading squad and a skate club. Parallel to the sunset, the performance moves in a circle around the Neue Nationalgalerie and connects artists, performers and audience. The “Galaxy Parade” will be accompanied by a new commissioned work by the composer, producer and DJ EUROPA.
Esben Weile Kjær (*1992, Copenhagen) is a Danish artist and theater director who wants to get to the bottom of the self-image of his own generation in his works. Of particular importance is the question of how technology and pop culture enable and influence our perception of reality.
TRAUMA
Troels Primdahl (Choreography & Creative Production)
Madalina Stanescu (Creative Production)
Kyle Van Horn (Creative Production)
Leonardo Liccini (Creative Production)
EUROPA (Composition)
Invited clubs:
Berlin Bears Cheerleading, BÄM! Drumline, Jam Skate Club, Fifi Fantôme Color Guard, Spice Hoopers, Ribbon Gymnast Nathalie Köhn & Co., The Milky Way Group
Saturday, September 14, 2024, Admission: 6 pm
Bendik Giske: “Edge” (Sound in the Garden 2024)
A new concert performance by musician and composer Bendik Giske, conceived especially for the Neue Nationalgalerie, is about personal and social borderline experiences. The title “Edge” refers on the one hand to the feeling of a borderline experience in the face of political and ecological threats and on the other to the connection between musician and instrument, human and tool, which Giske’s music achieves with its carpets of sound and virtuoso circular breathing.
In a new twist for Giske, the interest in boundaries and abysses is also reflected in the scenography. In a physical and mental feat of strength, Giske will repeatedly lean from the upper balustrade of the sculpture garden on safety ropes low over the several-meter-high edge into the sculpture garden.
Bendik Giske (born 1982 in Oslo) is a Norwegian jazz and improvisational musician (saxophone, composition).
Bridget Ferrill (Sound Direction / Live FX)
Theresa Baumgartner (lighting and stage design)
Andra Dumitrascu (Costume)
“Yvonne Rainer. Trio A” is made possible by Lise Stolt-Nielsen and ”Museum & Location.” “Galay Parade” by Esben Weile Kjær is created at the invitation of the Neue Nationalgalerie in collaboration with TRAUMA. “Edge” by Bendik Giske is part of the series SOUND IN THE GARDEN 2024. The program is made possible by Pace Gallery, Volkswagen Group Culture and Freunde der Nationalgalerie e.V. The program takes place as part of Berlin Art Week 2024.
WHEN?
Festival dates: Wednesday, September 11 – Sunday, September 15, 2024
Opening hours Neue Nationalgalerie: Tuesday – Wednesday, 10 am – 6 pm, Thursday, 10 am – 8 pm, Friday – Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm
WHERE?
Neue Nationalgalerie
Kulturforum
Potsdamer Straße 50
10785 Berlin
COST?
Free admission
