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Through a subtle and precarious approach,“An attendee” tries to guide the audience perspective into the details of space, along the edge of (un)spectacular events, towards the frictions of different encounters. Small stimulation open up to bigger questions, emotionally and energetically charged, as a single performer finds themself in the company of a set of things, fragments and sounds. Upon encounter they transform into subjects, into micro narratives and locations, sketching out a place of memory, loss and hope, where leftover voices give their account.
As the performer moves along and with them, a precise, soft and concentrated body emerges that tries to attend to these accounts, encapsulated in the environment. In the attempt of overcoming a present state of affair towards another state of “future”, the performer encounters internalised projections, obsessions, lingering violence and wounds.
The practice that this work brings to the foreground tries to investigate the utility of being in a broken place, that a priori to fixing or saving, asks to be embraced with delicacy and care, with trouble, yet attention. The viewer is invited to join and rest in this space too, without pushing for answers, judgement and absolution, and to give in to the disquiet.
By looking at ecological philosophies and environmental precarity, effectively supported by an isolating pandemic, Toni Steffens is investigating anew what the notions of “environment” can mean within the theatrical and artificial realm of the black box. In her practice she refers to the context of visual arts and balancing on the line between two different traditions of mediation, in between spectacle and installation, theatre and still life/exhibition. Being sensitive to western arts traditions, she imitates the “gallery space” to foreground the power of things, objects and more than human reality. Here is where she uses performance and theatre with a notable emphasis on movement to let those things open up, create mystery and discourse, take the lead of the story and question the human body in their arrangement and encounter.
Booking info:
length: 48 mins
I am travelling together with my light designer Paulina Prokop. The set deisgn and lights fit into two trollis and two odd sized luggages.
Credits
Choreography and Performance: Toni Steffens
Set design: Nikola Knezevic and Toni Steffens
Costume: Ginta Tinte
Lights: Paulina Prokop
Sound: Toni Steffens, Teresa Winter
Advise: Keerthi Basavarajaiah
Notable Attendees influencing the work: Alina Popa, Ana Mendieta, Camille Claudel, Jeanne Dielman
Production: Veem House for Performance, NBprojects, 2020
Reviews:
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There are more than 50 subspecies of the Australian jumping spider. Each one of them has their own unique dance routing, performed by the male spider under the judgmental eyes of its female chosen one. The female assesses the dancer and chooses to be either mounted, simply walks away with disinterest, or kills and eats the male dancing lover. At times, she even chooses for a combination of those scenarios. It is assumed that the dancing behaviour is genetically hardwired, rather than “learned”, making the jumping spider a natural born dancer. Certain studies show that female spiders of the jumping spider species Portia however also dance. They do so not in order to seduce their potential mates, but instead mimic the males dancing routine, to protect their nest or wear off other spiders. So while the male spider pursues dancing as a flamboyant act of seduction, with the hope to inseminate the female at the risk of life, the female spider learns, masters and even perfects the males dance routines, using improvisation and trick movements, like unexpected pauses in the routine to ensure her peace of mind, her own life and/or that of her offspring. Wether for war fare or intercourse, dancing comes into play as a decisive moment in a spiders life. A tool, a weapon, a communicator, a trickery and a mastery. While the male spider dancing its courtship dance has been plentiful documented, the female spiders dancing behaviour and how it came to do so is still subject to debate. May it be perhaps, that the female spider is the ultimate dancer in disguise? Is it not her who has the final saying over the life and death performance of her potential lover? And isn’t it though her perfecting the choreographic steps, enabling her to protect her own offspring, that she is elevated into being ultimate judge over wether his hardwired dance that she’s ought to pass on to the following generation, is even worthy enough of her own craftsmanship, and the way how she reverse engineered his dance moves to turn them from a flirt into a fight?
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