Performances

On the one hand, the work refers to such art-historical traditions as the modern avant-garde and Oskar Schlemmer’s Das Triadische Ballett (1919–1922), whose playful approach to geometrical forms in connection with dance and performance was first discovered by the artist in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart during her time as a student. The references to performance in the 1970s are equally important. Certain aspects of Aladağ’s work, in particular the accordions, which fold out in a manner reminiscent of wings, and the rainmaker’s hat, which demands a sense of equilibrium and a mastery of the body, allude to Rebecca Horn’s body instruments (e.g. Weisser Körperfächer, Balancestab, both 1972). The questions addressed by Horn’s works vis-à-vis the relationship between bodies and movement and the potential of sculptural extensions to the body are followed up by Body Instruments, particularly in terms of sound.

Body Instruments owes its topicality and conciseness to the fact that Aladağ applies these art-historical approaches and formal languages, while simultaneously interweaving them with levels of historical and social meaning. For example, the work refers to the richly diverse tradition of making music in public, which stretches from the wearing of bells by medieval jesters and fairy tales involving ratcatchers, via sacred and profane processional customs to modern street music. And the figure of the busker also invokes questions of social status and of how society negotiates the use of the public realm. With its bells, accordions and two different forms of drum, the performance combines instruments drawn from a range of temporal and spatial contexts. The common factor shared by these instruments is that they are all found beyond the confines of western classical music. Played together, they thus create a piece of experimental music that achieves a balance between the essential sounds generated by actions such as walking and the more poetic ones that result from consciously chosen movements.

 

Credits
Commissioned by Museum Tinguely, Basel as part of Museum Tinguely AHOY!
Concept and choreography: Nevin Aladağ
Performers: Przemek Kamiński, Darko Radosavljev
Curator, Museum Tinguely: Dr Sandra Beate Reimann
Production Manager: Attila Gaspar

Movement and circularity as prerequisites for our existence that are symbolically present as the sun and the moon – the latter evoked by the round, silvery dance floor – underlie the presented cycle. Body, sculpture and celestial bodies unite in dance and movement. The eternal and permanent, as represented by these heavenly objects, combine with the here-and-now, the contemporary spectacle, to form a machine infernale.

During the course of the performance, the artist appears with a range of objets trouvés. As the spectacle continues these begin, as if by chance, to form an installative assemblage. And the term assemblage can also be used to describe the conception of the piece itself: The sequences that Hominal herself labels as numbers successively fit together to form a colourful and harmonious overview of a moving and tragicomic imaginary world: a cosmic circus between show-business and avant-garde art.

Credits
Commissioned by Museum Tinguely, Basel as part of Museum Tinguely AHOY!
Conception and choreography: Marie-Caroline Hominal
Performer: Marie-Caroline Hominal
Curator, Museum Tinguely: Dr Sandra Beate Reimann
Production Manager: Attila Gaspar

The penetratingly sharp and sometimes absurdly comic text meanders, guided by contentual and phonetic associations as well as by the movements of the actors. Again and again, one comments upon the narrative or picks up on the gestures of the other with their own gesture, like a «physical echo». This structure is held together by two constantly repeating elements – a rowing movement and a swing of the arm accompanied by an «ahoy!» – and the pentagram traced out on the floor that guides the movements of the actors in the space: a backwards and forwards within the closed figure of the circle. The piece appears to break the rules of the game – and self-reflectively comments upon its own medium – by offering observations on theatrical elements or even performance art, «more elegant, more intelligent ... than theatre».

The artist has interlaced the text with her own pithy metaphors and precise analyses of contemporary society. With dry humour and, at the same time, a sense of pain, Cytter’s piece offers us a glimpse of the singularised and performative social context of today.

Credits
Commissioned by Museum Tinguely, Basel as part of Museum Tinguely AHOY!
Text and direction: Keren Cytter
Song texts: Keren Cytter
Song composition: Andreas Schlaegel
Actors: Fernanda Farah and Damian Rebgetz
Curator, Museum Tinguely: Dr Sandra Beate Reimann
Production Manager: Attila Gaspar