The Ritual Season
Based on established practices rooted in repetition and transformation, the artists perform a formalised ceremony open to a multitude of individual dedications and associations. In this setting, performers and audience members alike have the freedom to shape the purpose of their actions. For the audience, it’s an opportunity to explore personal associations while the performers let their dedications shape the work. From shattering object fetishisation to sacrificing time, confronting energy consumption, and participating in rituals of forgiveness, the variations are as varied as the people engaged. Joining the dancers, Hanna Hollmann will apply her drawing practice on the walls, and Thomas Kasebacher will develop and design the edible elements of the ritual.
In a performance spanning five hours daily, four days a week over six weeks, the audience enjoys the freedom to come and go as they please and establish a reoccurring individual encounter with a ritual.
is a Vienna-based dancer and choreographer originally from Sweden. Together with his long-time collaborators, he creates long-durational dance performances, most often placed in spaces that are not theatres. After his education at the Balettakademien in Stockholm, he moved to Austria and first worked as a dancer before founding the association Archipelago together with Anna Maria Nowak in 2008. In 2022, they jointly established the performance space Der Betrieb – an accessible space in Vienna’s 15th district with big windows to the street and a low threshold. Der Betrieb now hosts their long durational dance performances and functions as an experimental venue where the meetings of people and the practice of being together are in focus. Thematically, Gottfarb’s performances investigate notions such as democracy, ritual, and work.
Credits
Artistic direction Alexander Gottfarb Choreography, dance Alexander Gottfarb, Raul Maia, Anna Maria Nowak, Lena Schattenberg Live drawings, costume Hanna Hollmann Musical composition Stephan Sperlich Food performance Thomas Kasebacher Musical contribution Raul Maia, Tini Trampler Technical Support Roman Harrer Production management mollusca productions Graphic design Katarina Schildgen Produced by Archipelago Co-produced by Tanzquartier Wien With kind support from the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, Vienna, the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sports, and Arbeitsplatz Wien
14.00–19.00
14.00–19.00