Encounters
In Alexander Gottfarb’s latest piece, Negotiations, 13 dancers from different generations came together and, in turns, filled the TQW Filiale in Neustiftgasse with dance for eight hours a day, for 365 days. An important aspect of Negotiations was to highlight and make visible the fact that dancing is also a form of highly skilled and physically demanding labour. His new work, Encounters, can be placed on the same line of artistic inquiry and sees Gottfarb continue his artistic (and non-artistic) questioning of the relationship between choreography, art making and the post-Fordist capitalist society. Encounters is an attempt to “work” without producing material goods or consumer services.
What results is a long, continuous dance, taking place in a workspace in Vienna over a whole weekend. The 50-hour performance will be streamed above.
To make the most of your experience, Alexander Gottfarb and his team have compiled a short travel guide, explaining the principles of their practice and the different ways in which you can join, including instructions on how to practice yourself using an audio guide. You can also send the crew your comments and questions via encounters@tqw.at, which they will respond to live in a virtual logbook down below.
We meet to work. We meet to exchange. We meet to practice being and moving together.
We need the encounter with the other to transform, to grow, to become ourselves. For an encounter to take place, we need contact, but also difference. An encounter is a coming together of differences.
Our practice has two simple principles: repetition and transformation. We repeat every movement. We allow these movements to transform, using them as input:
- our own internal rhythms, sensations or desires
- the space which both supports and resists us
- the information we receive from the others who move with us or watch us
These chains of transformation are part of one long cycle, like the rhythm of night and day or the passing of the seasons. This time, the cycle will last 50 hours.
Ways of joining:
Watching
We invite you to slow down your perception. We invite you to alternate between zooming in on a detail or taking in the whole landscape, being witness to the long-term changes – like watching the light at dusk or the clouds in the sky. We invite you to see the spaces in-between. What are the images you can see appear and disappear? What are the sensations you can feel? You might experience some inner movements or rhythms, moving in synchrony with us. Or you might drift off completely. That’s up to you. After all, you can return any time you want to. You can also play your own favourite music while watching.
Practicing
We invite you to practice with us in your own room. In order to do so, you can listen to this audio guide down below.
Dialoguing
We invite you to respond to us by sending your reactions to encounters@tqw.at.
You can find our answers in our virtual Logbook.
In order to prepare this event for you, we took all appropriate measures to guarantee everyone’s safety, including regular COVID-19 testing of everyone involved.
We invite you to practice with us in your own room. In order to do so, you can listen to this audio guide down below.
(Please note that, for technical reasons, it is not possible to listen to the audio guide while you watch the live broadcast on an iPhone. If you wish to do this simultaneously, please use a desktop computer.)
We invite you to respond to us by sending your reactions, comments and questions to encounters@tqw.at.
You can find our answers in our virtual Logbook.
Click on the button to load the content from docs.google.com.
graduated from the Stockholm Ballet Academy in 2003. The Swedish artist lives in Vienna. As a dancer, he has worked with choreographers Elio Gervasi, Iztok Kovač, Chris Haring / Liquid Loft and Björn Säfsten, among others. He is a founding member of The Loose Collective. In 2009, he created the association Archipelago, together with Anna Maria Nowak, and has since created his own artistic work. Alexander Gottfarb’s interest in examining politically (Political Movements, 2010) or religiously (Moved by Faith, 2011) motivated forms of movement was already evident in his earlier pieces. His latest creation, Negotiations (2018), was a year-long dance performance taking place every day between 10.00 and 18.00 at TQW Filiale. The dancer and choreographer uses motifs of repetition and transformation, discipline and exhaustion in his work.
Credits
Duration: 50 hours, until Sunday 06 Dec, 20.00.
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Alexander Gottfarb über Encounters
Artist Video