PARASOL Logbook II
With PARASOL – a dance group of the TQW we have started a hybrid artistic training project aimed at young dancers. Each year, two renowned choreographers will work on a piece for three months with a group of five young dancers selected by them. The PARASOL Logbook will provide insights into the work processes of the group at irregular intervals. The texts by artist and writer Gianna Virginia Prein and photos by Marcella Ruiz-Cruz accompany the rehearsals for the performances with Ian Kaler in spring 2022 and with Alix Eynaudi in fall 2022, but also document and portray the project and its participants: Alex Bailey, Camilla Schielin, Júlia Rúbies Subirós, Shahrzad Nazarpour, Theresa Scheinecker.
8 April 2022
Studio 2, shortly before the production moves to Halle G
Disproportionate drawings of horses are pinned to the wall. The playlist is booming, the pressure of time is palpable. Four weeks pass quickly when marked by absences that disrupt processes involving the entire group.
Júlia, Alex, Shahrzad, Theresa. Frontal view of the group rehearsing: the linear tension of their bodies is broken at certain points, followed by counterbalancing falling movements. Ian, Dafne (video), Stephanie (space), Viktor (light), Camilla (injured) and I look in the same direction: at the first, 38-minute run-through. The studio gradually splits into a stage space and an in-house auditorium; Ecto-Fictions is taking shape by way of props, suspended projection screens and the work of the performers. Leather with decorative stitching, cream-coloured pieces of costume, jeans, boots and chaps call a Wild West aesthetic to mind, rounding off the overall picture. The group has continued knotting the brightly coloured reins; they lie parallel to each other on the black dance floor. Stephanie arranges them before returning to her AutoCAD stage layout, clicking. Ian’s instructions are more precise than last time, his vision of the piece seems to have become more definite, as he briefly summarises the structure and demonstrates how legs and arms should overlap. The bodywork material that has accumulated in the awareness exercises over the last few weeks is now being fine-tuned. Tearing tremors, pushing physical limits, soles wiping across the floor doing climbers, and the constant reminder to “push-pull” – time and again I recognise distorted, drawn-out fitness quotes, interpretations of movements characteristic of Ian. These are attempts to jointly externalise what the group has internalised for weeks during rehearsals.
Before leaving Studio 2, I take another look at the horses. Only when I stand directly in front of the drawings do I see the horizontal folds in the paper, dividing the animals into the parts of their bodies, and the differences between the drawing styles of the various parts.
At the end of the rehearsal, Ian says: “Now, you got a glimpse of my world. Let’s see what is your individual trajectory through it.”