Hedera helix
Hedera helix braids together fictive fantasies of past dances, imagined unrealised potential allies hidden in the theatre and is engrossed with the (im)possibility of becoming invisible and reappearing elsewhere. Influences as variegated as the shared principles shaping Baroque garden design and European court dance, the Grotesque ballets of Vienna in the 1700s, 1960s Post-Modern dance, and reruns of the 1980s tv show Fame interlace and inform each other. Hedera helix is busy with dance histories, knowing full well that these (hi)stories are fleeting, easily forgotten. Hedera helix accepts not all will be visible, embraces abstraction, and attempts to dance like an overgrown abandoned garden in which elements of the past are visible through the thicket of the present. The theatre is not neutral territory but a landscape in which we touch and are touched by the pasts and futures.
(b. Detroit 1977) is a choreographer and performer currently living in Vienna. Previously she has lived and worked in New York City, Athens, Brussels, and Portland, Oregon. Her work explores the collective histories of dance lineages accumulated in a dancer’s muscle memory as a living archaeology. Recent projects include Dancing’s Demons (2020, TQW), Un-dedication (2019, steirischer herbst), Anti Fascist Ballet School (2017, Wiener Festwochen; 2016 WIEN WOCHE), and Corps de Ballet (2016, brut). Previously her work has been shown through the Kitchen (NYC), Danspace Projects (NYC), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), Disjecta (Portland), La Poderosa (Barcelona), ANA (Copenhagen), Pieter PASD (LA), and Trinosophes (Detroit). As a performer, she has participated in the works of Cathy Weis, Yvonne Meier, DD Dorvillier, Michikazu Matsune, Manuel Pelmus, Frédéric Gies, Philipp Gehmacher, and Anne Juren, among others. Elizabeth received her BA from Bennington College in Vermont, where she studied Dance and Ecology.
Credits
Concept, choreography Elizabeth Ward Choreography, performance Alix Eynaudi, Samuel Feldhandler, Mzamo Nondlwana, Elizabeth Ward Music Özgür Sevinç Sound Mastering Deniz Altun Lights Krisha Piplits Production assistance Maiko Sakurai, Elisabeth Prankl-Niklas, Yoh Morishita Documentation Fedor Shmelkin Thanks to Julia Müllner, Elodie Grethen, Anna Menslin, Anna Schwarz, Anne Juren, Bernadette Schönangerer, Bernadette Mayer – A coproduction by Elizabeth Ward / vitus and Tanzquartier Wien. With support from the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, Vienna, and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport. Supported by the Bears in the Park residency programme.