goerli dreamin’

Görli Dreamin’ – Creative Exercises in Urban Ecology of Sound & Movement

a research and performance project by jagna anderson

in association with thursday night impro-performance lab

vol. 1: trailer research

vol. 1: trailer performance

vol. 2: trailer performance

The local traffic network is a place of sharing. Not one of the hype new sharing economies, but an old fashioned one. Its age is an advantage for a critical inquiry: it has branched out beyond its originally scheduled functions and it cannot hide its underbelly any more. So we can see it as it is: a place to share as well as a place to crash against each other, a place of meetings and of avoidances, of seamingly huge possibilities which are resulting from the sheer amount of people you can find there as well as a place of utter rejection and poverty. A mythical place and a non-place (Un-Ort).
Let us take Görlitzer Bahnhof. At the heart of Kreuzberg, a kind of capital of creativity (or a capital of creativity dreams), in the middle of a chaotic intersection, under the shelter of the absurdly light-and-lacy-glass-and-metal architecture all the multifaceted problems of this district seem magnified:
The new, reckless face of mass tourism is crashing into flower-power or revolutionary romanticism, gentrification is meeting social flashpoints, creative start-ups are confronted with refugee policy, a highly glossy mosque is looking down at the hot spot of drug trafficking.

In spite of everything that has been said so far, this project does not intend to embark on any superficial social or economical critisism. The point of interest is rather the ecology of urban sounds and movements at a focal point of the city. In this respect, the ultimate question is who are we as artists and what our responsibility is. We want to work free of fixed expectations regarding the results and according to our own skills and competences. As dancers, performers and musicians we are professionals of movement, sound, space, composition, dramaturgy. We are trained to open our senses and to notice what we are noticing. At subway stations, more or less consciously, people close their senses, shut off their awareness, distract their minds in every possible way. We wish to uncover these blind spots without judging whatever we might find. The subject of critical questioning is the relationship between the explored material and our artistic practices.

Taking this into account the project proceeds with two phases:
phase 1 – field research/ intervention
phase 2 – dreaming/ performance

In phase 1 of the project three groups will work separately on collecting and embodying the material: sounds and movements at and around the Görlitzer Bahnhof. Our field research will be at the same time an intervention, as we’ll be visibly and audibly present.
In phase 2 all the groups will work together to compose the material into a “dream score”.

Phase 1 involves the following groups:

A. Vocal group: will explore the effect of all possible kinds of urban sounds upon the bodies and especially the vocal cords (kinesthetic listening) as well as collect (embody) vocal samples. Tool: applied voice anthropology.
B. Movement group: will explore the effect of the topography, architecture and “social space” of the station upon the ecology of human movements and will collect (embody) movement samples. Tools: Laban/Bartenieff movement studies, ViewPoints.
C. Sounding group: will explore general sound patterns as well as the different sounding textures of the place and collect sound samples. Tools: sound studies, sound art, experimental music, found and self-made sounding objects.

See the short documentary movie by Roberto Duarte, Görli Dreamin’ vol. 1 – Field Research

Phase 2 makes use of Action Theater, ViewPoints and instant composition methodologies to develop a score out of the collected material. Phase 2 is about composing as well as about co-creative “dreaming”: letting the materials merge, develop, transform and reveal their subconscious and unconscious layers.

The project was carried out in July and August 2015 and premiered on 6 September 2015 at Mime Centrum Berlin, further performances: 12 September 2015.
Görli Dreamin’ vol.2 was shown on 29 May 2016 in the scope of Performing Arts Festival Berlin 2016.

Concept/ artistic direction: Jagna Anderson
Collaboration/ performance:
Jagna Anderson
Alicia Andersson
Bibiana Arena
María Ferrara
Elena López de Haro
Dodi Helschinger
Julia Jahnz
Aya Am
Kadri Noormets
Maya Raghavan
Susanne Soldan
Estelle Sorribas
Karine Thomas

Video docu: Roberto Duarte

Information: Jagna Anderson, team (at) impro-per-arts.de

Performances: 6 & 12 September 2015, 20.00, at Mime Centrum Berlin
29 May 2016, 20.00, at Mime Centrum Berlin