Throwback to week 6– time to map

In this last week, I spent several days alone, taking the time to digest all the different encounters and information.

I rediscovered Jonathan Burrows “A choreographer’s handbook”. The following passages resonated with me:

Subject

“If I have a subject I want to pursue and I want to show it in movement, then I had better find the right language to say it.

It is very easy, when we know what we want to say, to fool ourselves into thinking we’re saying it.

Faced with movement, the first subject the audience see is ‘movement’.

What can movement say?”

“What can dance do?

What can’t dance do?

Dance can’t do everything.”

Throwback to week 4 – connecting through movement

I invited the artist Kasia Wolinska to join me for the 4th week of the residency. This encounter was based on the exchange and sharing of movement practice.
It was so interesting to meet in this way, through the body and the practice and the memories stored in the body, leading to deep conversations about technique and practices, working methods and working conditions. It was a very direct way to exchange ideas and get to know each other.

Without explicitly talking about “portrait” we gave each other insights into our respective current thoughts and also doubts and frustrations.

Through Kasia I rediscovered Steve Paxton's „Material for the spine“ and we danced to music, breathing and sweating.

Throwback to week 2+3 – first encounter

I invited the artist Joséphine Evrard to join me for the 2nd and 3rd week of the residency. Joséphine was already involved as a voice coach in the creation for WARRIOR and WEAVER, but we had never met in this more open research format.
What is an encounter?

What does it mean to meet /encounter someone?

What aspects meet?

What is an exchange or what do you exchange?

How do I formulate an invitation?

What roles are present (dancer, choreographer…)?

We met through the mirrors, encountered a white dear, sat in the garden of Uferstudios and discovered sommon references of our past.

Throwback to week 1 – alone in the studio

It was my first time back at the studio after the creation and tour of WEAVER earlier this spring.

I entered the studio with many questions and excitement. By the end of day 1 I realized, I also brought with me many expectations that first had to be uncovered and let go before I could potentially sink into a research mode. Paradoxically there need to be great focus but also a state of relaxedness into what is there. This is not a project, not a production but time for myself, for my nourishment, for my thoughts and doubts, without having to produce anything specific. I am very grateful for this opportunity, but also have to admit that it needs a lot of calmness and in a way self-discipline and strength to be able to relax into that situation.

I feel very grateful for the last 6 weeks I was able to spend in residency at the Uferstudios in Berlin
Thank you Uferstudios, Kultur | lx - Arts Council Luxembourg and the Embassy of Luxemburg in Berlin for making this possible!

I had the immense pleasure to spend time, research and deeply exchange with several people from the field of dance, music and dramaturgy.
🙏🏻Thank you Joséphine Evrard, Maja Zimmermann, Heike Bröckerhoff, Kasia Wolinska, Thomas Schaupp, Marc Lohr and Diethild Meier for accepting my invitation.
It has been a deeply nurturing and refreshing journey ✨ and I’m looking forward for more.

Last week I spend 5 inspiring days in Danemark at the IETM Plenary Meeting (in Aarhus with a Pre Day at Earthwise Residence)

"Living on the edge" - talking about ecology and sustainability , art and activism

So many beautiful encounters and deep exchanges are filling my heart. It has been difficult topics and it was very enriching to be able to sit with these topics together with peers.
I am looking forward to now digest and integrate and continue these conversations in my surrounding and at the next meeting
Big shout out to the organization and all the participants, it’s been an honor to spend time together.

🙏🏻 @kulturlx for support

In the last weeks I have been taking it a little easier and am slowly recovering from the intense time of the creation and touring time around Weaver. I started to read again and stroll around exhibitions and nature, and my curiosity is awakening again.

It is still some weeks, but slowly I start to wrap my mind around the upcoming research residency happening at Uferstudios Berlin. I have the immense chance to have been granted a 6 weeks residency organized by Kultur LX | Arts council Luxembourg.

Looking forward!

Thank you Godefroy Gordet for this interview for @culture.lu
I talk about my work of the past 5years, the trilogy (Warrior, Dreamer, Weaver), of my time being associated artist at Neimënster, about feminism and thoughts around my art
… and all this in french 🙃

Have a look

„Dans sa série, Anne-Mareike Hess s’affirme femme, au-delà de toutes descriptions connues, d’abord en guerrière, puis en rêveuse, et enfin tisserande, se muant en autant de symboles pour servir la construction de nouvelles notions variables, par la déconstruction d’anciennes idées fixes. Ainsi, avec elle, nous retraçons cinq années de travail jusqu’à ce stupéfiant final, qui n’a rien d’une fin à proprement parler. Une poignée de questions qui se sont transformées en une véritable et passionnante rétrospective de son parcours et ses aspirations actuelles.“

We made it! ✨

Creation - done
Premier - done
14 shows - done

The last months have been very challenging and exciting at the same time and now I am filled with gratitude and joy (and I am completely exhausted)! 😅
Every bone in my body hurts, but I am grateful for this process and the great team of collaborators. We have created something powerful that feels important and I am deeply touched by the responses of the audiences.
🔵
Now we take a little break and hopefully we will be back on stage soon.

✨

Jérôme Quiqueret  wrote an article about Weaver for Tageblatt

read the full article here

✨
Here are some excerpts of Marie-Laure Rolland for La Glaneuse 29.3.2023

"Choreographer Anne-Mareike Hess concludes her trilogy on the female body with a veritable tour de force. In 45 minutes and with a minimal scenic setup, it shows the story of centuries of oppression, without complacency on the responsibility of women themselves in a system that is starting to crack.“

"They leave the room with a determined step, arm raised, fist clenched on the stick which now no longer symbolizes oppression but the struggle for liberation. It's a strong image, expected in a certain way at the time of #MeToo, but the path to get there is as radical as it is masterful on the choreographic level."

read the full article here

WEAVER is out✨

It has been a long and intense process. We laughed and cried together. I feel so much gratitude for this experience and for my dear team that supported, trusted and followed me on this adventure.
✨ Laura Lorenzi, Julia B.Laperrière, Lynn Scheidweiler, Thomas Schaipp, Marc Lohr, Brice Durand , Mélanie Planchard

Now it’s out and I am so much looking forward to share it with different audiences.
In case you missed the 3 sold out shows @neimenster last weekend, there is another chance this friday 31.3. at 20h to catch Weaver in Luxembourg- more precisely in Echternach @trifolionechternach

Further dates here:
- April 14-16 at @weld_insta
- April 20-23 at @skogen_masthuggsterrassen
- April 27-30 at @dock_11_

2 weeks to the Premier! Working hard!

Lisa Tsumakova visited us and took some insights.

Here is also a little video

We spent 2 wonderful weeks at Dock11 Eden in Berlin. Accompanied by storm, rain, even hail and only a few precious moments if sun ☀️ it was wonderful to come back and dig into the creation of Weaver together with Laura Lorenzi and Julia B.Laperrière
✨
From the vast pool of material we touched during our first research phase in autumn, we stripped down and reduced a lot. We got some wonderful input and support on breathing and voice by Joséphine Evrard

This felt at times very fragile, but also inspiring… looking forward to the next steps.

Thank you Anina Valle Thiele for writing this portrait in Luxemburger Wort

„The Luxembourgish dancer and choreographer pushes the limits. She follows her own way with seriousness and creativity and is in tune with herself.“

"Anne-Mareike seems more reflective than other artists. Perhaps her choreographies are also individual steps or layer that she has put on and peeled off over time, just like the skins of an onion in order to see herself and the world more clearly.“

„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

The IETM Network Plenary meeting in Belgrade comes to an end.

I am a member of this network since mid 2021, but only now could I have my first live experience to meet all the inspiring members.

 💫

After 3 full days of listening, reflecting, connecting and exchanging with other members of the network I feel inspired and full of questions.

I am looking forward to dig deeper at further meetings thanks to the support of the IETM grant by @kulturlx 🙏🏻

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

Beautiful encounters at the „crossing borders“ meeting happening within the context of Theatertage Rheinland-Pfalz.
Connecting and exchanging and happy to discover the works of some artist colleagues from Germany, Belgium, France and Luxembourg.

Thank you KulturLX for the mobility 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

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

💫After one year of break we are finally back in the studio working on the creation of the solo „Dreamer“.💫
.
The first 3 days I was mainly trying to dive back into the univers of the Dreamer, revisiting material and thoughts 💭

Monday!! Back to the office
Working on ideas and organization of the upcoming projects #throughthewire 📞 and #dreamer
Stay tuned for dates and more insights💫

On the occasion of the performance of "Warrior" at the Aerowaves Dance Festival Luxembourg on th 3rd of September, we have released 2 behind the scene videos on social media.

Have a look✨

Here & here

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.

Next week the project „Through the wire“ is being hosted by Bora Bora in Aarhus (DK). I am very much looking forward meeting 10 different participants for 10 one-on-one telephone conversations.

10 hours imagining dances!!!

BoraBora has produced a little teaser, that can be watched here

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.