The Slowest Urgency (an environment)
Bodies in the process of becoming, in ever different reconfigurations, are driven by an urgency that instantly interlaces the inner and outer landscapes and, at the same time, stretches the moment the wave breaks by slowing it down as much as possible. The choreography thus paradoxically oscillates in opposite directions – between utmost slowness and utmost urgency, as well as between close groups and scattered singularities. It unfolds while taking its respective ‘environment’ into account, i.e., the Jugendstiltheater on Baumgartner Höhe at the Wiener Festwochen and Galerie 5020 at Sommerszene Salzburg in 2021, mumok at ImPulsTanz in 2022 and Seestadt Studios at the CPA in 2023: it’s as if the performance venues and the body landscapes of the performers are generating each other, breathing new life into the location-specific black box with a white cube.
Within the framework of Choreographic Platform Austria
studied Contemporary Dance and Choreography in London in the 1990s and Fine Arts in Vienna in the 2010s. He is a Professor of Contemporary Dance and Choreography and has directed the BA Dance Context Choreography at HZT Berlin since October 2022. Gehmacher’s artistic works use the body and verbal language as forms of utterance, built and institutional space, as well as sculpture, objects, and things. He focuses on physicality, movement, and the realisation of bodies-in-motion as shared environments, in interaction and towards potential togetherness. With these works between and beyond black box and white cube, Philipp Gehmacher is represented locally and internationally in theatre festivals and exhibition contexts. He has worked in various constellations and media with Laurent Chétouane, Ian Kaler, Krassimira Kruschkova, Vladimir Miller, Jen Rosenblit and Meg Stuart, a. o.
Credits
Choreography, text Philipp Gehmacher Performance, text Abigail Aleksander, Juan Pablo Cámara, Roni Katz, Renato Miskolczi, Andrius Mulokas, Elizabeth Ward Composition, sound direction Peter Kutin Objects, installations Liesl Raff Costumes, objects Anna Schwarz Artistic assistance Lukas Kötz Production management Stephanie Leonhardt Produced by Philipp Gehmacher/ Mumbling Fish. The Slowest Urgency (an environment) is based on The Slowest Urgency, a co-production by Philipp Gehmacher / Mumbling Fish, Wiener Festwochen and PACT Zollverein (Essen), with the support of SZENE Salzburg. Funded by the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, Vienna, and the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sports. A special thanks to Anne Juren and Krassimira Kruschkova.
In English