„Weaver“ - residency insights
What if the first human-made tool wasn’t a weapon but a basket?
What if we would not tell a hero story but the story of process?
How do you even do that in a dance work?
What would it be to not work from a place of struggle, but from a place of ease?
These are some of the questions we carried with us during our 2-weeks research residency in October @oespacodotempo
They were inspired by „The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction“ by Ursula K. Le Guin.
With @lori_lorenzi & @juliabl.co
📸 @ly______nn
„Weaver“ - New creation in the making! 💫
I spent the last two weeks in residency at wonderful @oespacodotempo
It was a very special and intense time. After several years working on solos, this new creation will be a trio. I have invited @juliabl.co and @lori_lorenzi to join me in the studio. These last two weeks, we got to know each other on and off studio, we danced and sang together and planted some seeds for this new adventure!💫
Let the journey begin!
Premier will be end of March 2023!
Stay tuned!
🙏🏻 @kulturlx for supporting this residency
🙏🏻 @oespacodotempo for having us and taking care of us
From 31.8.-3.9.2022 I will be at Internationale Tanzmesse NRW in Düsseldorf (D) together with some of my colleagues. We were selected by Kultur LX and TROIS C-L to represent our work and the luxembourgish dance scene. We will be present at Booth n•7.
Thank you for this invitation.
Looking forward to meet an reconnect to friends, colleagues and other professionals from the international scene.
Click on the picture to watch a short video about my work.
Video by SKIN
What a great way to kick off this new season!
This last weekend was a blast. 4 shows of „Warrior“ at Dock11 in Berlin (DE) are done and I want to thank my dear friends, colleagues and strangers that came to see the show. 💫
It feels so good to be on stage again and to feel the power of this solo.
Magic✨ happened during the shows and the words and reactions of the audience filled my heart 🤍
Created in 2018, this solo is still so painfully relevant and necessary….
.
Yes I know, I don't teach very regularely, but in the last two weeks I had the opportunity to give workshops at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (HfMDK) in Frankfurt/Main and at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig and it was very much fun.
In Frankfurt I had the opportunity to rediscover the school where I graduated many years ago and enjoy the many changes that have happend since then.
In Leipzig I had the pleasure to meet and exchange with artists from so many different backgrounds and artistic practices.
Thank you for these inspiring opportunities.
On May 31st was the Premier of the documentary about my work "Anne-Mareike Hess: Le corps en etat d'urgence" by Marie-Laure Rolland and Bohumil Kostohryz.
Here you can get some insights into the making of the film (in french): click
It was a weirdly uncomfortable to see myself on screen, but also a nice and exciting experience and I am glad so many people showed up at the screening.
Stay tuned for more screening dates.
Currently I am in a 2 week residency at Neimënster in Luxembourg to take some concentrated time to dive into my research for the upcoming production “Weaver”.
With "Weaver", a dance piece for three female dancers, I would like to use the image of weaving and its inherent creative potential of connecting and net-working and transfer it into a contemporary choreographic reflection on our society today - a story in which past and future, individual and collective fate of the female body are interwoven into the dense fabric of social togetherness.
This research is supported by "Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR"
This photo shows a detail of an artwork by Claudia Hill seen at Bärenzwinger Berlin
Two years ago, I got asked by Marie-Laure Rolland and Bohumil Kostohryz if they could follow the creation process of the solo Dreamer and create a documentary movie about my work.
Now, after many months of shooting during the rehearsals leading up to the premier in December 2021, the film is nearly done and I am so excited to be able to discover the final result, together with an audience on May 31stat 19h at Neimënster in Luxembourg.
Further dates will follow.
This is so exciting!✨
It has been a new and sometimes challenging experience for me to be followed by a camera and to be exposed to the gaze of Marie-Laure Rolland and Bohumil Kostohryz and to their questions and projections. How to stay authentic while being watched? How to stay in the not knowing and the preciousness of an artistic process while being watched? It has been a very interesting process of opening for me and it made me grow in many ways. I am very grateful for this opportunity and the insistence, curiosity, enthusiams and interest of Marie-Laure and Bohumil.
We have a new review!
Thomas Olsson wrote for Svenka Dagbladet after seeing the show on 1.4. at Weld in Stockholm. Here are some excerpts:
"With its equally intense and conscious presence, both physically and mentally, in the stripped-down room, it is about a body in constant change. A physicality which in its ambivalent state seems as strong as it is fragile."
"The body that is given shape in "Dreamer" wants as much to create its own image of itself as to play with all the ideas and conventions associated with the female body. The cast between the unprotected child and the sexually challenging or the art-historically referring body can be sharp in a work that requires both the audience's attention and the dancer's absolute presence. As if to emphasize that everything is stored in the same body. A body that holds the unprotected, the sexually challenging and the art-historical referring.
What the Berlin- and Luxembourg-based dancer and choreographer Anne-Mareike Hess portrays in her hour-long solo is as much a dream state as a nightmare-like or a surreal scenario where some kind of body frees itself and takes place in the room."
(google translated from swedish)
This is how you end a tour...with a beautiful dinner with the audience on stage!
Thank dear audience, team and partners for this intense experience of the last 2,5 weeks.✨
We rocked 12 shows of Dreamer and Warrior in 4 cities and experienced beautiful moment and encounters.
Magic happend in may ways!✨
Now everything is packed back in suitcases, resting and loading for next time!
Thank you Dock11 (DE), BoraBora Dans og Visuelt Teater in Aaurhus (DK), Weld (SE) and Skogen (SE) for your trust and thank you Kultur LX for the support
Since 14.2. I am in residency at Neimënster in Luxembourg in the context of the "Associated artist" program. This is now my 3rd and last week of working in this wonderful studio/office.
I have mainly been working on the organization of upcoming projects and fostering new ideas for the future. It has been challenging at times with what is going on in the world. Luckily I was visited regularely by two pigeons, making love at the window...hope
In line with the premier of Dreamer💫 we published a booklet with contributions by Thomas Schaupp, Mélanie Planchard , Luca de Vitis / The Holy Garbage, Zee J. Hartmann, Marie-Laure Rolland and the skillful graphic design by Julie Conrad Design Studio.
Find more information about the publication here
During January and February you can discover some major highlights of the booklet on the socials. There will be a post every week.
Follow me on the socials and stay posted
One week ago we were celebrating the Premier of Dreamer!💫
I am so proud of this work and happy I could finaly share it with the audience.
I am nothing without my team, supporters and audience. So I hereby would to take the opportunity and thank:
Thomas Schaupp, Mélanie Planchard, Marc Lohr, Brice Durand, Sousana Eang, Natalie von Laufenberg, utopic productions, Neimënster, TROIS C-L, Weld, Skogen, FOCUNA, Ministère de Culture Luxembourg, BoraBora Aarhus, Tanzhaus Zürich
🙏🏼
Photo by Bohumil Kostohryz
For the new project Weaver, choreographer and performer Anne-Mareike is looking for two female identifying dancers.
The creation period will take place in Berlin, in Luxembourg and in a residency abroad between October 2022 and March 2023, with the Premier in Luxembourg end of March 2023 and further performances in 2023.
About the project :
With "Weaver", a dance piece for three female identifying dancers, choreographer Anne-Mareike Hess would like to use the image of weaving and its inherent creative potential of connecting and net-working and transfer it into a contemporary choreographic reflection on our society today - a story in which past and future, individual and collective fate of the female body are interwoven into the dense fabric of social togetherness.
"Weaver" is a continuation of the research along the deconstruction of gender stereotypes.
Requirements:
What I offer:
When:
Rehearsals will be planned in different blocks between october and december 2022 and February and March 2023
Premiere: 24.-26 of March Neimënster Luxembourg
If you might be someone I am looking for, please write a few sentences about yourself (responding to requirements) and send a short video of you dancing to
Deadline for sending applications: January 5th 2022
Selected people will be invited to a studio session in Berlin or in Luxembourg between mid January and end of February
Please have a look at our website to familiarise yourself with the style of the work before getting in touch.
More about the choreographer and the company:
Dreamer in process...💫
One month to go to the premier at Neimënster in Luxembourg. Get your tickets here. Limited seats!
Photo by Mélanie Planchard
A few months ago I had this nice encounter with @charlotte_inred 🎥
I talk about my journey of becoming a dancer and choreographer and about my way of working 💫
Check it out on their YouTube channel
Photo by Antje Taiga
Thank you culture.lu for this nice interview.
Here you can read the full article
New round of "Through the Wire" sessions are available in Luxembourg @Neimënster, sign up now! 📞 #TTW
Get your spot ➡️ +352 26 20 52 1
Monday!! Back to the office
Working on ideas and organization of the upcoming projects #throughthewire 📞 and #dreamer
Stay tuned for dates and more insights💫
Beginning of July I was performing the extended version "Warrior - durationally unplugged" at the New Baltic Dance Festival in Vilnius. And this is what Dovilė Zavedskaitė wrote in Menų Faktūra about the performance (translated from Lithuanian):
“After watching the performance at the National Gallery of Art - which brought me to meditative states - I remembered a conversation with the dancer Lukas Karvelis, in which he said: 'When I dance, nothing scares me. Then I feel like the strongest man in the world, with no fears.' Anne Mareike Hess is also the strongest person on the planet in her performance, who slowly but surely owns the space with movement, breath, singing and gaze. Not merely taking, but taking and occupying. I don't even want to use metaphors - what I see here is not a fight or a warrior, but a moving body, at first alien to the space, and finally so necessary to the space that without the dancer there is almost a hole.”
Find the full article here
And a second article here
Photo by Dmitrijus Matvejevas
I've finally got a Facebook page dedicated to my work. If you want to stay updated and connected, follow utopic productions by Anne-Mareike Hess! ✨
Jonas Schildermann and Zee Hartemann have been sharing their reading of the solo "Warrior" at Springback Magazine.
Thank you very much!
Read the full articles here
Photo by Andrej Lamut
Last weekend was magical.
I performed the new extended version of the solo "Warrior" at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius in the context of the New Baltic Dance Festival.
The space was beautiful
The audience was beautiful
And performing this extended version brought me to new places in the material and in the emotionality. What a trip!
Thank you Gintaré Masteikaite and New Baltic Dance for inviting me and giving me this chance.
Thank you Dmitrij Matvejev for the great photos
...sings the warrior.
This week I‘ll perform my solo “Warrior“ on saturday June 26th, Live at Summer ReCollection Festival by Aerowaves in Ljubljana
Since a few days I am back in the studio, rehearsing to get back to the piece and find the warrior in me. It is a very rewarding and pleasurable process.
I am looking forward to be on stage again.
These are Traces from last weeks sessions of the one-on-one telephone performance „Through the wire„ at boraboradans
"I had a very wonderful experience - both flying and sinking deeply into the ground of the forest. I actually feel both happy - laughing and energized! Thank you!"
It is a great honor to share these special moments with the participants.
You can find more traces here
It‘s official!
On July 2&3 I‘ll be performing my solo „Warrior“ in a adapted 2h durationally unplugged version at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius in the context of the New Baltic Dance Festival.
This is gonna be so exciting to perform live and meet the audience.
I am also looking forward to be back at the studio and work on this adapted version.
3 weeks of residency at Neimënster come to an end.
I was working among others on my research „choreographing identities“.
It was intense and as always a big pleasure to have the privilege to spend this concentrated time in this wonderful place.
Tonight I'll have a short research presentation at TROIS C-L, sharing some thoughts and images with a small audience.
In the context of my current research "choreographing idetities" I had the pleasure last week to spend 2 days with choreographer Jee-Ae Lim. Jee-Ae gave me an introduction into korean traditional dance and on the basis of this experience we discussed about how specific movement and body posture carry some kind of values and create identity. And how these movements and values are passed over from generation to generation through embodyment. Very inspiring!
Begining 2020 I have accepted to write regularely at La Glaneuse’s Carte blanche to take the reader into the intimacy of my work. In this new episode, the reader discovers how the pandemic led me to imagine “Though the wire”, a project that allows me to reconnect differently with the public.
Read the full article here
Last week I have started a new reasearch project called "choreographing identities. I would like to explore how the practice of specific coded movements, postures and gestures affects and shapes the body and identity of a person and vice versa.
Today I have invited Pit Vinandy and his avatar Cyperpier to learn about his approach of working in virtual reality.
Excited to see where this will go.
Today was the last of the first series of 10 one-on-one sessions of the project "Through the wire"@Neimënster. It has been a great journey and I amgreatful to have met with 10 wonderful participants creating and sharing some heartwarming and magic moments together.
This has been the start of a longer journey. Stay tuned for more sessions to come.
Connected Through the wire
Here are some traces the participants left on the wall. Beautiful memories.
Today on air at Radio 100,7
Thank you Valerija Berdi for the nice interview and giving me the chance to talk about the upcoming project Through the wire and my experiences from 2020.
Listen to the full interview here
In the meantime I keep on working on the project and it takes more and more shape.
Today we finished the light and scenography, creating a dreamy space for the participants to sit comfortably and immerse into the experience
Book your spot (https://www.neimenster.lu/) and join me for a intimate one-on-one conversation.
Today neimënster had organized a press conference on Zoom, where I talked about my first year as associated artist, looing back at turbulent 2020 and presenting my porjects and plans for 2021. It was a great pleasure to have this opportunity to express myself.
Now I go back to working on the creation of Through the Wire and together with Mélanie Planachard and the technical crew of the house, we work on creating a special room, where the audience member will experience the one to one session. On monday we had fun diving into the furniture storage of this place!
Book your spot here:
End of the month is the premier of the project “Through the wire”! A project happening in form of one-to-one phone calls between me and one participant. The sessions will be hosted by Neimënster. Check out the dates!
So far it is a very interesting process with so many new challenges and input...there is so much to learn! I have already started to work and exchange with dramaturg Thomas Schaupp, costum designer Mélanie Planchard and coach Yoav Shavit. Wow, it is a whole new univers, trying to create a choreographic experience only over the phone!
Stay tuned.
The pandemic of the last 12 months has fundamentally changed my relationship with my own body and with other bodies. It's hard to describe, but distance, mistrust, restraint, isolation, waiting, restricted breathing - all of these aspects created a kind of alienation and changed my body feeling. I notice an increasing distance between me and my movement practice. Therefore, I feel the strong need to spend regular time in the studio and to get back to my movement practice outside of specific projects. What has changed?
This week I worked on rhythms. Through improvisation, noticing my patterns and listening to music, getting inspired to use different rhythms.
I realize how important music is in my practice, it is strongly coloring what I do.
Become the drum, become the piano. Singing with my sternum, beatboxing with my pelvis.
To be continued...
Little experiment in times of pandemic circumstances. Invited by Centre de création chorégraphique TROIS C-L, I created this small project Our eyes. Yesterday I performed it 8 times in a row. Intense experience.
This performance exists only through the momentary meeting of our eyes: My eyes and the spectator’s eyes. We are keeping the contact as long as it lasts. My body is simultaneously expressing through dance, what happens in this meeting.
I am very grateful for this experience. Performing in front of an audience in such an intimate setting and after such a long time was intense and heartwarming at the same time.
Thank you dear participants for your kindness and openness.
I want to start this New Year by sending you all a virtual hug and by saying THANK YOU for your trust und support!
2020 has no doubt been a little upside down for all of us. Now I am looking forward and am open to embrace all the challenges and beautiful surprises 2021 has to offer. Check here for some positive news.
2020-2025 aide à la structuration
conventionnée avec le ministère de la Culture, Luxembourg
All rights reserved © 2022 Anne-Mareike Hess