The b12 festival is a vibrant space for artistic processes, bold experimentation, and international exchange within a continuously growing community. The festival takes place annually in three editions in Berlin and brings together professional dancers, performers, and choreographers from around the world. At its core, the festival supports artists who are willing to take emotional and physical risks – both on stage and throughout the creative process.
asteroids is a performance project of the b12 festival that places artistic research and the development of new works at its core. Over the course of three evenings, international choreographers present their current pieces, created in close collaboration with b12 participants during intensive workshops. Each performance is followed by an open talkback session.
triple bill:
A borderline electromagnetic gossip ritual // Erna Ómarsdóttir
Fan Friction // Lucija Romanova
Associate Artist Punchdrunk // Maxine Doyle
A borderline electromagnetic gossip ritual // Erna Ómarsdóttir
This performance project creates a hybrid form of musical theatre that understands the voice as a direct extension of the dancing body. The voice is not only used as a musical or narrative tool, but also as a raw, textural and visceral instrument to express a wide range of abstract and concrete emotions.
Through the combination of extreme physical movement, the sound of the voice is physically distorted or influenced – and conversely, the sound determines the movement. Both verbal and non-verbal sounds are used in the creative process, creating poetic, dancing soundscapes that oscillate between melodic harmony and abstract noise.
Transformation and metamorphosis play a central role. With the help of textiles and found objects, the boundaries of the body are expanded and new possibilities for transformation are created. The manipulation of a wide variety of materials, from towels, curtains and skipping ropes to unusual and randomly discovered objects from the surrounding area, opens up new forms of physical and performative expression.
The starting point is materials from earlier works by Erna Ómarsdóttir, from which the research develops into a techno-mythological meditation on memory, obsolescence and endurance. The project sees itself as a borderline musical that understands electromagnetic clapping and the body as both an archaic machine and a myth. It flirts with ghosts of the past and present and transforms everyday objects into something sacred in a ritual context.
Fan Friction // Lucija Romanova
This performance examines the pop culture canon and iconic material through the lens of fan fiction. It takes as its starting point fragments from existing stories, pieces of music, quotations and images, which serve not as rigid scripts but as sources of inspiration. The canon, the official narrative, as well as possible deviations and alternative plot lines are used as a basis to create a space for improvisation, transformation and reinterpretation.
Typical fan fiction elements are taken up and developed further in the creative process. The movement work is based on improvisation, tasks and repetitions. Intensification, friction, collapse and overflow are essential moments, and nothing remains fixed. References become visible, transform and disappear again. The course of the piece is largely determined by impulses, reactions and the dynamics in the space.
Fan Friction is a field of experimentation that focuses on the exploration and transformation of the borrowed material through the body.
Associate Artist Punchdrunk // Maxine Doyle
A dance creation that develops from an exploration of the state and its human, political and animalistic associations. The choreography is created through cooperation, improvisation and physical work.
More Informationen b12 spring b12.space/spring/performances/overview
The b12 Festival is supported by DOCK ART.
