Blank Check is an annual festival series organised by nein9 kollektiv and DOCKART. It presents the diverse approaches of performances by the community of nein9. In this edition, they curate a selection of new and reworked works.
These include works that extend narrative duration, embark on apocalyptic journeys, engage with extremist populist politics in Europe, build bridges, transform gestures of an anonymous body into meaning and offer accessible forms of experience to visually impaired audiences. As part of Blank Check 3, nein9 is delighted to have invited AHA KOLLEKTÍVA from Hungary. They will be showing their award-winning work ‘DENSE PIECE’ and the world premiere of their new piece ‘Sweat Set’.
nein9: Erika Kooki Filia (they/them), Lena Klink (she/her), Omer Keinan (he/him), Raz Mantell (she/her), Ruby Frances Jones (she/they), Susanna Ylikoski (she/her)
Guests: AHA KOLLEKTÍVA Budapest
Production nein9 kollektiv in co-operation AHA KOLLEKTÍVA Budapest and in co-production with DOCK ART. Supported by EU mobility FUND
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
1st week
Thurs, 29 August 2024, 7pm:
continuing containing
Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski
Fri, 30 August 2024, 7pm:
solar bear / BRIDGEZ
Lena Klink
Sat, 31 August 2024, 7pm:
Mythologies
Omer Keinan
Sun, 1 September 2024, 7pm:
Sweat Set
AHA KOLLEKTÍVA
2nd week
Wed, 4 September 2024, 7pm:
Dense Piece
AHA KOLLEKTÍVA
Thurs, 5 September 2024, 7pm:
BRIDGEZ
Lena Klink
'..o' – Doppelkonzert mit Musik und Tanz
Fri, 6 September 2024, 7pm:
vignettes / Mythologies
Ruby Frances Jones / Omer Keinan
Language & Art Lovers on „vignettes / Mythologies“ in collaboration with theaterscoutings and as part of „Spielraum - Freie Szene Tage der darstellenden Künste Berlin 2024“
Sat, 7 September 2024, 7pm:
vignettes / continuing containing
Ruby Frances Jones / Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski
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Language: englisch
Duration: 60-120 min
Photo: Lena Klink
Website: nein9kollektiv.de/blankcheck
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DETAILED PROGRAM
continuing containing | 29. August
Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski
Welcome to „continuing containing“ where we explore the transformative power of collaboration. We ask: What is collaboration? What forms can it take? And what is made possible in and through collaboration? We explore the means and spaces in which an exchange occurs and how this exchange is a creative act that can reshape our understanding of the world.
We want to challenge our relation to hierarchies: Ideas of beginning and end, initiation and reaction, and creation and execution are broken up and transformed. In this way, space is created for a view of living together - a network, a forest, a society, a collaboration. In this, everyone and everything contributes to a force, to something that is to become.
In this way, we perceive collaboration as a political and creative act. It becomes a basis for the perception and shaping of being together and the person's relationship with nature.
By: Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski
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solar bear | 30. August
Lena Klink
Under the weight of old worlds, solar bear wakes up in speculative futures. Instinctively he starts to move. He learns to play with the weight. Learns to transform, to form, to grow. In the process, new worlds keep piling up, evolving and swallowing themselves whole. solar bear stands for a transformed figure in the future that constantly adapts to changes in the environment and tries to recycle given elements of the world.
In Solarpunk's vision of the future, the energy needed is generated using only renewable resources and successfully limiting environmentally harmful emissions. The aesthetics of the alternative art movement are characterized by the fusion of futuristic elements and Art Nouveau,. Seaking harmonise with nature. How such a world can be socially realized for all the people of the world is shown by the rapsing of visions against current realities. In cyberpunk visions of the future, post-apocalyptic conditions are often described in which survival would only be ensured by augmenting the human body with technology. Tuning one's own body into a cyborg through masks, technological sensors, visual aids or social adaptation can allow people to grow beyond their own limits of possibilities.
solar bear, being affected by those visions, tries to rewrite and plays with the idea of creating an aesthetic example in which organic and inorganic life can be powered by the sun and tries to balance utopian and dystopian sequences surrounded by melting icebergs.
Performance, Choreography: Lena Klink (she/her)
Performance Sound: ASA 808 (he/they)
Light Design: Vito Walter (he/him)
Thanks to the nein9 community, who carried the solo and provided dramaturgical support.
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BRIDGEZ | 30. August / 5. September, first Work in Progress Sharing
Lena Klink
Artistic research that builds physical bridges. Contrasting positions, perspectives and uses of space make it difficult to create connecting strands. What mechanisms can be used to connect bodies in space?
Idea, artistic direction Lena Klink
Co-creators and dancers: Erika Kooki Filia, Raz Mantell, Ruby Frances Jones, Susanna Ylikoski
Dramaturgy: Omer Keinan
Live Music: Ashley Maurice, Hari Krishna
after the performance on 5 September
..o'
Concert by Ashley Maurice, Hari Krishna and the visual artists of Studio Kodek.
".o" is a project by Ashley Maurice and Hari Krishna. Consisting of a guitar and a human effects pedal, the duo's concept revolves around improvisation and exploring the periphery of sound. Their music explores the theme of harsh minimalism, where a pure guitar sound is transformed into an entire wall of sonic density through complex manipulation and layering. The musical contribution will be visually supported by the artist duo Studio Kodek. Studio Kodek
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Mythologies | 31. August
Omer Keinan
You are invited to share a story from your daily lives. A story from yesterday, weeks ago, years ago; an experience you’ve had, which still resonates, that you would like to share with all of us. We will then bring your story into the space and play with it, inviting it to become our collective story. Unraveling the mythologies present within it, present within all of us.
A practice-based investigation through concept of mythology: a cultural phenomenon which shapes a community’s way-of-being and belief system. Often disguised as a natural common-sense, it is a discursive practice which deeply alters our perception of reality and, in turn, our agency to interact with it. Taking the role of mythologists, together we examine the ways we “story” our own experiences, deciphering and tracing their impact on our attribution of meaning and value to reality. As more stories are told, we may begin to illuminate the map of our contemporary mythos and its symbolic order. Enacting this process through improvisatory, embodied-practice, the body is taken as a material in which mythology is etched, and which therefore has the potential to scandalize it, to introduce a performative wobble which brings about an intricate and erotic deconstruction.
In this two-hour version, we will tell, retell, and dance many stories in a communal, open, and laboratorial atmosphere. The audience is asked to gather for the beginning of the event and are invited to take breaks as they need.
By: Omer Keinan
With Erika Kooki Filia, Lena Klink, Roi Becker
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Sweat Set | 1. September, Premiere
AHA KOLLEKTÍVA
The six AHA Collective members aim to create a platform that constantly draws on their creativity, where they could think together on a longer term rather than on a project basis. Their long-term plans include organizing different workshops where they can share their interests with local contemporary dancers. They are also curious about collaborating with like-minded collectives.
It is important for them to work together based on friendship, respect, and trust, and to create a community with a solid foundation.
„Sweat Set“ is an improvisational dance performance that focuses on preconceived notions about dancing. As the dancers explore and deconstruct stereotypical ideas like liberation, passion, and physical beauty, they simultaneously seek individualized and universal connections to dancing.
Through physicality and the memories of emblematic choreographies, they uncover ways to summon the revolutionary force that movements can po
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Dense Piece | 4. September, Berlin-Premiere
AHA KOLLEKTÍVA
Density is the central theme of the performance, with the creators and performers destroying and building, stuck, colliding, heating, recycling, falling, ending in themselves, but above all, existing honestly, in their co-created world and their set of rules. Indirectly, the physicality of the performance is bravura and virtuosic: there is no need to show off, the incredibly skilled and talented performers simply allow it to happen when the process calls for it. Working in this way that prioritises research, allowing rather than wanting, also allows the viewer to take in a wide range of information provided by the music, movement,
bodies and light. Dense piece has positioned itself among those abstract dance performances where the performers keep their personal voices, leaving the spasmodic wanting in the dressing room, and devote themselves to the presentation of their research.
„Dense Piece“ is part of the selection of dunaPart6 – Platform in Hungary in 2023.
Performane: Barbara Eyassu-Vincze, Márton Gláser, Imola
Kacsó, Luca Kancsó, Balázs Oláh, Vivien Piti
Music: Áron Porteleki
Light: Virág Rovó
Consultant: Ármin Szabó-Székely
Producer: SÍN Arts Centre
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Mythologies | 6. September
Omer Keinan
You are invited to share a story from your daily lives. A story from yesterday, weeks ago, years ago; an experience you’ve had, which still resonates, that you would like to share with all of us. We will then bring your story into the space and play with it, inviting it to become our collective story. Unraveling the mythologies present within it, present within all of us.
A practice-based investigation through concept of mythology: a cultural phenomenon which shapes a community’s way-of-being and belief system. Often disguised as a “natural” common-sense, it is a discursive practice which deeply alters our perception of reality and, in turn, our agency to interact with it. Taking the role of mythologists, together we examine the ways we “story” our own experiences, deciphering and tracing their impact on our attribution of meaning and value to “reality”. As more stories are told, we may begin to illuminate the map of our contemporary mythos and its symbolic order. Enacting this process through improvisatory, embodied-practice, the body is taken as a material in which mythology is etched, and which therefore has the potential to scandalize it, to introduce a performative wobble which brings about an intricate and erotic deconstruction.
In this shorter version, we will activate two stories in a relatively dense and theatrical atmosphere.
By: Omer Keinan
With Erika Kooki Filia, Lena Klink, Roi Becker
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vignettes | 6. / 7. September
Ruby Frances Jones
a veiled specter folds
shifts form
a conduit for the ineffable
seeking
and
unraveling
being.
vignettes: noun
- a brief evocative description, account, or episode
„Vignettes“ is a procession of punctuated images, cropped and pasted. Each image frames a character, whose posture is born of feeling or memory. The face each character wears asks its gesture-body to be heard. This is a solo performance exploring character-based improvisation, gesture, mime, and masked theater. Each of the faces worn during the solo has been hand sculpted by the performer themselves, and serves to enhance their physical form and/or deformity, highlight character beats, and invoke meaning. Guided by this cast of masked characters, the audience may be invited to consider themes of Death, Transmission, Spectacle, Birth, Irony, Ambition, and Survival.
Masks, choreography, performance: Ruby Frances Jones
Sound: Benjamin Sanchez Watson, Ruby Frances Jones
Photo: Isaac Levi
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continuing containing | 7. September
Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski
Welcome to 'continuing containing, ' where we explore the transformative power of collaboration. We ask: What is collaboration? What forms can it take? And what is made possible in and through collaboration? We explore the means and spaces in which an exchange occurs and how this exchange is a creative act that can reshape our understanding of the world.
We want to challenge our relation to hierarchies: Ideas of beginning and end, initiation and reaction, and creation and execution are broken up and transformed. In this way, space is created for a view of living together - a network, a forest, a society, a collaboration. In this, everyone and everything contributes to a force, to something that is to become.
In this way, we perceive collaboration as a political and creative act. It becomes a basis for the perception and shaping of being together and the person's relationship with nature.
By: Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski
