Concept and performance: Susanne Martin
Dramaturgy: Brenda Waite
Mentoring: Andrew Morrish
Choreographic support: Meagan O’Shea
Duration: 45 min.
Supported by: Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin, Mimecentrum Berlin, Tanzfabrik Berlin
Premiere: BAT Studiotheater Berlin July 2009
Touring: Berlin, London, Plymouth and Granada (in Spanish language)
Rosi tanzt Rosi – The Conference is a 45 min solo performance with three characters; with Rosi’s enigmatic choreographies and a round table discussion honouring, dissecting and critiquing her oeuvre; with film excerpts and movement demonstrations; with crisis and a happy end.
It’s a lecture on contemporary dance, which draws the audience into a play of dance references while reality and fiction become a question of opinion and interpretation. “The Conference” looks at choreography and improvisation, at the narration of femininity on the dance floor and behind the microphone, and creates a complex web of identities around and perspectives on contemporary dance.
“The Conference” and the academic setting
“Rosi tanzt Rosi – The Conference” is the final piece in my M.A. studies at HZT Berlin. During the M.A. course focussing on “Solo / Dance / Authorship” I searched for a personally enriching and satisfying way to bring together my 20 years of dance and performance practice with academic research. As the piece draws attention not only to questions of contemporary dance aesthetics, authorship and historical solo figures in dance, but also to the academic art of ‘reflecting on and talking about’, it attempts to link performance practice and academia in an entertaining and thought-out way. It especially lends itself to be shown in the context of university as a proposition, as a discursive template. Many discourses of today’s performance and dance studies are touched upon in this work that I would wish to open to an engaged and informed student and staff audience for further discussion and exchange in an after-show talk.
Press: “A fleet-footed disquisition on the self-made myths in the dance-business…captivates through dance- and didactic humour.” (Die Tageszeitung Berlin)
Technical needs:
DVD player: professional (that doesn’t go into stand by mode after a few minutes in pause mode)
Projector: 4.000 / 5.000 ansi-lumen for theatre stage; min. 2.000 ansi-lumen for smaller studio
Projection screen (3×4): 300 x 225 min. or bigger, depending on size of stage
1 table and 3 chairs (conference look)
2 wireless microphones, 2 table mic-stands
Sound system / theatre lights: standard
A complete technical rider is available