Warrior

2018

My enemy is my fear

And it takes my breath away

So I call to fight with love, open up my heart

I call you to fight with love, open up your heart

Seduced by the belief that a fierce strongman, is all we need to get things done and save the world, choreographer Anne-Mareike Hess, takes us in her solo on a journey of becoming a warrior. Within a distorted and at the same time soft soundscape emerges a profoundly poetic image of human fragility and inner disruption. A dancing body caught in a perpetual fight with its emotions.

Her debut solo Warrior premiered at the end of 2018 and is the first part of a series of works that explore female identity by drawing inspiration from mythology and popular culture. Constructed as an act of resistance, the piece draws its energy from deep within the

choreographer, revealing and questioning the world we live in. Through the metamorphosis of the body and the evocative power of the warrior figure, Anne-Mareike Hess celebrates femininity in relation to strength.

Warrior is followed by the solo Dreamer in 2021 and the trio Weaver in 2023.

Press

"It’s so refreshing to see a piece that doesn’t show ugliness as an antithesis to beauty, but rather as the outcome of deeply nuanced research. Anne-Mareike Hess accomplishes this in Warrior. In this mini post-modern opera, Hess embodies a painful, imperfect transformation into an expanded version of herself, not only through the sequential layering of oversized foam armour, but also through electrified pop-and-locks and grounded power poses. Deliberate, exaggerated breathing, beatboxing, coughing, throat-clearing and strong, activated vocals reverberate against the rafters. It’s not always comfortable to watch her box and bend, not because you’re embarrassed for her, but because the struggle is so relatable.

Maybe ugliness isn’t the right word here. The work is not ugly. Hess is not ugly. Her voice is not ugly. It’s impressive. It’s fierce. It’s vulnerable. Sometimes sad. But in the end, she’s made it through: calmer, wiser, stronger."

Zee Hartmann Springback Academy 2021 Springback Magazine 5.7.2021

“The piece hits the zeitgeist very precisely. In a world in which we find ourselves increasingly in (political) situations, where we ask ourselves: What actually happens here? Why is nobody doing anything? Not only in these circumstances, "Warrior" is a piece that tells us a lot about creating a warrior type, empowerment through the discovery of one's own voice and the constant, sometimes humorous, failure on the way there. "

Sarah Moessner Tanznetz 17.12.2019

"Warrior - with few resources, thoughtful, powerful and full of political explosive power."

Daniel Konrad Luxemburger Wort 7.12.2018

“Warrior, the latest creation of choreographer Anne-Mareike Hess, is a phenomenal act of resistance she reveals through a metamorphosis of her body.”

"... the choreographer stays true to herself at the level of the radicality of her movement language. (...) For her, movement is the expression of an energy drawn from the depth of the bowels and channeled into a very constructed and controlled discourse. "

Marie-Laure Rolland for La Glaneuse 10.12.2018

"...the luxembourgish dancer and choreographer is one of the artists who, through her presence, instantly fills the whole spance and captivates the spectator. (...) the proof that the radiant emittance of force has nothing to do with pomp and sensationalism."

"Femininity itself is celebrated and put in realtion to strength."

"When the "fight" comes to an end it has created a noticeable intimacy between the dancer and the audience. The initially individual struggle became a common one."

Christine Mandy for Journal 10.12.2018

"Warrior turns out to be a wonderful discovery."

Dieter Hartwig for Tanznetz.de 14.2.2019

Text

"...Different from previous works, Hess surpasses the performer’s objective gaze onto
a supposed audience, and let the performing body burst over itself. There is nothing more
to hide, the fight with subjectivity has already started. In the physical excavation, she lets
the choreography surpass itself, at once pumping the body full of material - and emptying it
all out. This is a body of noisy memories, whose senses flow beyond it’s physical scape.
It’s body of the now is at war against itself...."

excerpt from the text "The body at war against itself" by Frida Sandström 

Instant feedback by Elisabeth Nehring in the context of Tanzforum Berlin

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