DIE ÜBERSETZER – How(I)

The world seems increasingly stranger and more confusing to many. What does “home” mean in a time of refugee crises and immigration societies? How secure, or insecure, how open or closed should be “home”? How is “home” constituted for people from different cultures? Jessica Van Rüschen, Menghan Lou, Simone Deriu and Felix Landerer approach the question in quite different ways: How can one translate the hybrid and dynamic basic structure of the term “home” into dance?

In ‘How(I)’ (= how do I?) I worked with an idea researched a couple of years earlier during a residency at Dansateliers Rotterdam: ‘Getting up’ in the slowest possible, constant, motion. That image was created in context of ‘getting up for your needs’. I was looking at the absurdity of the notion of an objective meaning of life. Thinking that we create meaning ourselves and that this personal ‘meaningfulness’ often does not translate to an Other.
So the image of someone, investing enormous effort into something the observer cannot really comprehend, appealed to me.

While working with this physicality of super slowmotion I observed a shift in my perception. Having committed to the task, physically and mentally challenging, I observed how my mind slowly found little ‘openings’ for freedom. While first only enduring the physically heavy task, being stuck in time, wishing for the future to happen, I later perceived the possibility to continually release tension in my body and mind: through shifting weight imperceptibly, releasing unnecessary tension and observing the movement of my breath as a support to create space in my experience, I could sometimes find peace in ‘now’ instead of longing for the future to happen: the effort to end. 

So, when I define my body as home, in concept, how free am I to realise ‘my Self’?
‘I’ grown by nurture and nature, unexamined by conscious awareness more often than not feels oppressed by thought- and habit patterns.

In this piece I wanted to work with a very reduced physical task to have the dancers observe their thought and habit patterns within their home (body). In a movement imposed from outside, they were looking for their freedom of choice. They ‘get up’ for their needs and find their freedom in ‘how’.

For me, the person who can give meaning to what he does, is a picture of freedom and inspiration. He adds something that wasn’t there before:

A creation.

Choreography: Jessica van Rüschen

Performance: Simone Deriu, Anila Mazhari, Luigi Sardone, Karolina Szymura, Menghan Lou

Music: Christof Littmann

Stage: Melanie Huke

Costume: Theresa Klement

Lightdesign: Wolfgang Denker, Jessica van Rüschen, Menghan Lou, Simone Deriu, Felix Landerer

Photo/ Video/ PR: Marc Seestaedt

Production/ PR: Achim Bernsee I minusmalminus

Assistance Production: Selina Glockner

Office: Judith Elbeshausen

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: LANDESHAUPTSTADT HANNOVER, KULTURBÜRO, STIFTUNG NIEDERSACHSEN, NIEDERSÄCHSISCHES MINISTERIUM FÜR WISSENSCHAFT UND KULTUR