URBAN POLYCHROMIA is a site specific laboratory-performance designed for public spaces.
Polychrome is “the practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors.”
(C.M. Harris, ed. Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture).
URBAN POLYCHROMIA is an artistic practice of performative re-coloring and re-shaping of urban spaces.
POLYCHROMIA is a continuous work-in-progress, a process of finding ever new relationships between space, shape and color, performers and audience, pure form and possible poetry. It is a durational group process of instant composition based on simple pedestrian movements.
The core of p.u.r.e. work is questioning the relationship between us performing the city and the city performing us. Thus we approach the performance with a researcher or an “urban ecologist” mind. That leads us to kind of minimalist approach. We are not creating a “spectacle” on the street, not trying to garner as much attention as possible: we rather work on the quality of attention itself.
We are looking for pedestrian quality of movements, for subtle ways of emerging in urban space, changing tempo & timing of actions, setting duration against the busy activities of the street.
We economize our use of body shape as an expressive tool, seeking rather for dialog between the inner and outer than for emblematic form. We are not looking for playing characters or inventing theatrical scenes. We are doing just what we are doing: meeting each other and meeting all the human and not-human elements of the urban environment, being affected by them and responding to them as composers searching for the most clear and specific form.
concept/facilitation – Jagna Anderson
(c) Roberto Duarte
21 August 2016 | URBAN POLYCHROMIA #1 | Warschauer Brücke
performance
p.u.r.e. performative urban research ensemble
Dodi Helschinger // Jagna Anderson // María Ferrara
& guests
Bruno Missoni // Janine Schneider // Laura Sarah Dowdall // Matthias Lutz // Sabine Venaruzzo // Sandie Brischler // Sarah Menger
28 August 2016 | URBAN POLYCHROMIA #2: re/centering in blue | Berlin Alexanderplatz
performance
p.u.r.e. performative urban research ensemble
Dodi Helschinger // Jagna Anderson // Susanne Soldan
& guests
Bruno Missoni // Gosia Gajdemska // Momo Sanno // Sandie Brischler // Martina Janssen
18 September 2016 | URBAN POLYCHROMIA #3: time square
performance
p.u.r.e. performative urban research ensemble
Dodi Helschinger // Jagna Anderson // Susanne Soldan
& guests
Bruno Missoni // Gabriele M. Franzen // Janine Schneider // Julia Jahnz // Matthias Lutz // Rouben