berlin GERMANY 2013

berlin GERMANY 2013

Ufer Studios / july 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

guest artists

paola bartoletti

Paola Bartoletti has Bachelor E.D.D.C. Performing Arts, Holland as well as a Masters in drama, (KASK) Belgium.  As a performer and singer she’s worked with Het Muziek Lod from 1995.  She also performed in Jo Ha Kiu with director Yochiko Chuma e Tun Dun.  Paola is a teacher at the Academy of Drama in Ghent.  In performance she creates her own work and collaborates with Guy Cassier and Eric de Volder, Kunsten Festival des Arts in Brussels.  She studied singing with An Marie Rogiest in Belgium and voice with Ingrid Voemans Lichtemberg Methode.2000 till 2003 and she has being teaching at the International Summer Academy of Theatre in Athens.  As a singer she’s collaborated with various jazz and contemporary musicians like Bart Maris, Paul van Geysegem (Blue Note Festival Belgium) and Dick van der Harst

 

 

nadia cusimano

Nadia Cusimano studied dance, accountancy and physical education in Italy and in 1996 received a BA in Performing Arts, EDDC in Arnheim. She is a BMC™ Somatic Movement Educator and a certified Peak Pilates Instructor. After dancing with Sasha Waltz & Guests in Berlin till 2002, she has collaborated on projects with Xavier Le Roy, Eszter Salamon, Constanza Macras, Tino Seghal, Paul Gazzola and Lone Twin Theatre. A versatile performer, theatre maker and dramaturge, she has collaborated with Xavier Le Roy, Eszter Salamon, Constanza Macras, Angelika Oei, Lone Twin Theatre, Paul Gazzola and more recently Chiara Guidi -Raffaello Sanzio that has seen her operating at the forefront of international contemporary dance and theatre practices. She is co-founder with Paola Bartoletti of Le due Moine (http://leduemoine.blogspot.com.au)
Awards and residencies include Bundanoon Trust Residency 2012, Critical Path NSW (Australia) and inSPACE Development 2013 Adelaide Festival Theatre.
 
 

 

notes

paola bartoletti
The Berlin meeting
July ’13
 
day 1
il tuo smalto é paradossale!!!
dicono che é un segnale di aggressività inespressa
dicono chi?
loro! loro lo dicono
lo dicono quelli che hanno fatto degli studi approfonditi su coloro che mettono lo smalto di colore rosso acceso sulle unghie dei piedi, e il loro comportamento correlato
nei momenti liberi cosa fa e chi é uno che si mette lo smalto di colore acceso nei piedi? a parte i momenti in cui si mette lo smalto nei piedi?
danza
non c'é niente di più soddisfacente che danzare col muro
fino a quando il muro si incurva
e cosi' si dirà che ha danzato talmente tanto contro il muro che il muro si é incurvato
poi ho visto una, ma era stamattina, con il cuore sotto l'ascella e che non sapeva neanche  dove aveva il bacino, che poi l'ha saputo dove l'aveva
agire e reagire
ma reagire a cosa?
reagire all'agire?o agire al reagire?
anche reagire é agire! ah!!
comunque non potevo muovermi, non sapevo perché e non sapevo come, poi con quella forza della natura che é in natura e anche nella nostra natura , dopo un falso movimento mi sono mossa nello spazio reale in una maniera diretta e precisa senza scorciatoie ne tagli netti e radicali
e  cosi' sono stata assorbita da un fluido nella mente che anche la testa mi pareva una membrana
 
your enamel is paradoxical!
they say it is a sign of unexpressed aggression
 who says it?
them! they say it
 those who have made detailed studies on those who put the red polish on the toenails
and their behaviour related
in their free time who are they  and  what do they do those who  put the glaze colour on their toenails ? except for the times when they put the glaze on their toenails ?
dance
there is nothing more satisfying than dance with the wall
until the wall is curved
and so they will say that they danced so much against the wall that the wall became curved
then I saw someone, but it was this morning, her heart was under her arm and she did not know where she had her pelvis, who then knew where she had it
act and react
but react to what?
react to action?  or act  to reaction?
also reacting is an action! Oh!
however I could not move, I did not know why and I did not know how, then with the force of nature that is in nature and also in our nature, after a false move I move in real space in a direct and accurate way with no shortcuts  neither with radical and net cuts  
and in any case I was so 'absorbed’ by a fluid in my mind that even my head seems a membrane
 
day 2
Mentre osservo un passo che non lo vuole diventare penso alla gran lotta che facciamo contro cio’ che potremmo perdere, paura di perdere paura di trovare paura di perdere perché paura che non verremo ritrovati
E la spina dorsale trasparente é cio’ che resta ma non era anche lei il ricordo di cio’ che si é perso ? il ricordo del fluido che é  anche un organo ?
Come si puo’ perdere la pelle trasparente e fragile
Immagina se il mondo fosse trasparente e infrangibile !!
Poi benvenuta cerebralità e questo tuo restare immobile con la testa in giù , cosi’ infrangibile
La’ come una colonna portante reggi una scena
Dove e come comincerai  a sorprendermi ?
Nel mio respiro c ‘é traccia di  mattino  ancor prima
E ancor prima,ancor prima  di parlare di serpenti, c’é un sibilo nella mia bocca che cercava di mordere la  tua coda
 mentre il sibilo tentava di diventare canto
Perché cosi’ fanno gli antichi animali sacri, rischiando la morte per concepire
Lo spazio in cui non sono e vorri essere mi sfugge
Associo un mio sentire ad un altro mio sentire o ad un altro ancora
e scelgo di rompere,
bisognerebbe rompere di più
allora la strappo questa trasparenza perché ne resti una memoria rotta
 
As I watch a step that It does not want to be(come)
 the great struggle against what we do, that we could lose, fear of losing fear to find, fear of losing because of fear that we will not be found
And the  transparent spine is what remains from what we have lost
 the memory of the fluid which is an organ too
How can  you 'lose’ the fragile transparent skin?
Imagine if the world was transparent and unbreakable!
Then welcome  intellectualism and remain motionless with your head down   so 'unbreakable’
There, as a column, you hold the scene
Where and how will you begin to surprise me?
In my breath, tracks of mornings even before
and even before, before we talk, that we talk about snakes, there was a hiss in my mouth
while I was trying to bite your tail, while the hiss was trying to become a song
because so are the ancient sacred animals, risking death to conceive
The space in which I’m not and where I’d lke to be makes me flee
I associate my feeling to another or to another one
and I choose to break ,
we should break more
 then I tear this transparency because it remains a broken memory
 
day 3
Dot dot
Repeat
Dot
Repeat
Dot
Repeat
Repeat
Dot
Dot
Parallel dot
Dot
Dot repeat
Line
Repeat
Dot
Svsvsvsvsvsvsvsv
Impulse heart
Heart
Don’t repeat
Spread-line-dot
Repeat-regret
Repeat what?
What?
Repeat!
I said dot!
I said repeat!
Repeat what?
Repeat? What!
Heart
Dot
Heart
Dot
Dot-dot
Repeat not
Svsvsvsvsvsvsvsvsv
Tube sssssssssss
Tube bs bs bssss
Svsvsvsvsvsvsvs
Bsbsbsbsbsbsbs
Push the Bs into the Vs
Let the vsvs slide on bsbs
Oh!!! Bsbsbsbsbs
And vsvsvsvs
And clouds dsdsdsdsd
Louds dsdsdsdsd
Oud dsdsdsds
Ud dsdsds
Dsdsd
sssssssssssssssssssssssssss
 
day 4
How many Irish jigs behind the door, doors and traces of what it was, not
Dancing, trying, reaching
The point of knowing without realizing
Changing places thinking that also inside something will change
We did not answer to each other all the time
But does it matter?
It does not matter!!
We hear, coming from I do not know where
But still how few traces have remained 
That’s why we sing
You can never forget what you sang
beCause a song is done to remember
And to spend time
Or to waste time
Jigs and reels and figure 8
To see your funny face again
Hi how are you while you are trying to grab me with your hands and your desires?
Hi! How am I, while I’m trying to follow my invisible needs
More than one handle open one or more doors and behind each of them you do not know what to choose
But…
There is no choice
Says someone from somewhere
Make an effort because senses amplify
Your half body is moving
But the other side is equally important
Where are the sounds that made us dance?
Where are the dances which let us meet?
And where are the feet which made us eat?
This was a joke but it fit!
And not so far a little movement changes everything
I  mean  ‘Everything’
 
Quanti concerti irlandesi dietro la porta, le porte
 e le tracce di quello che non era
Danzando, tentando, raggiungendo
Il punto di sapere senza rendersene conto
Modificare i luoghi pensando che anche dentro qualcosa cambierà
 non  ci rispondiamo a vicenda tutto il tempo
Ma che importa?
Non importa!
Sentiamo dire senza sapere da dove la voce viene
Ma  quante poche tracce sono restate
Ecco perché le cantiamo
Non si può  dimenticare quello che si canta
poiché una canzone è fatta per ricordare
E per passare il tempo
O per perdere tempo
gigs and reals  e  figure 8
Per vedere la tua faccia buffa
Ciao come stai mentre si stai cercando di afferrarmi con le tue mani e i tuoi desideri?
Ciao! Come  sto  io mentre inseguo  le mie esigenze invisibili?
Più di una maniglia  apre una o più porte e dietro ciascuna di loro non si sa cosa scegliere
Ma …
Lì non c’é  nessuna scelta
Dice qualcuno da non so dove
Fai l’ultimo sforzo perché  i sensi si amplificano
Il tuo mezzo corpo è in movimento
Ma l'altro lato è altrettanto importante
Dove sono i suoni che ci hanno fatto ballare?
Dove sono le danze che ci fecero  incontrare?
E dove sono i piedi che ci fecero mangiare?
Questo è  uno scherzo, ma  faceva rima!
E non troppo lontano un po 'di movimento cambia tutto
intendo dire 'tutto'
 
Paola Bartoletti
 

notes

nadia cusimano

Berlin

day one
Letting returning possible only with/in the body.
The moment is eternal and repeats itself over and over again without linearity. Our membranes re-produce, produce, move : fluidity, vibration, organic transitions.
No thinking in this feeling.
Yet the sense of ending and death is overall present
… What does it mean to die somatically speaking?
I enjojed the silence, the stillness, your grounded eyes.
How much can we lose in a moment?
How much life in an instant?
And time passes like our blood but smells familiar when we are in pain.
White – like paper – why do we need so much poetry?
Where are the words hidden between those cells?
Can we stop?
Can we actually really stop?
Is it an option?
Then we can be re-born like today.
I couldn’t stay out. Out of what?
A connection that continues: we all wanted to be one for once!
And this moment in between where I choose to break the rules, I need it: something that only I could give to myself.
You are all invited.
Private.
 
day two
Fire
fuoco
fire
fuoco
fire
fuoco
fuoco
fire
fire
fire
fire
 
F  –  I  – R – E
Bright light
More light
No light
Better light
Very light
No light
Spirit
My spirit
Your spirit
Here now light
So much light
Light
Endless lights
Thank you light.
Into the light
To the light
To this light.
 
day three
Symmetrical space
A feeling of symmetry
Yet emotion still runs like clouds, maybe it’s the talking about death, the sounds about death, the image about death, the end like the beginning.
A full circle, like an embrace: how much can we love?
Silence
Space for silence.
There are no words for this feeling of silence.
Silence
Falling into memories of ending, of changing, of starting all over again,
always new always moving.
Silence
My silence
Moving today goes far away, from here into my life, the life I have lived till now. And like the wind brings back a sensation for which I found no words.
Just a texture, a dense liquid texture, moving continuously all around me powerfully, sensuously, sinuously.
A presence about my life.
Maybe it’s my life.
Maybe if we stop we can see and touch all our life till now?
Maybe we can re-trace our years back to all those places, smells, encounters, tastes, seas and oceans, eyes and skins, they are all here.
An overwhelming reality: I feel sick
I can breathe now I could hear the birds outside it’s ok.
Finding peace.
Revealing, resting, hoping. 
An old sadness like a river …
Is it all an illusion?
Is it all my illusion? Dot dot dot
A magma of my life.
 
Nadia Cusimano
 

notes

lin snelling
Berlin
 
day one
to be
absorbed: spong(ee) ness
the sense (ing) of water
moving through interstitial (spatial) fluids
 
moving around
moving through
what forms fluidity
what freezes
what flies
what flows
 
questions for approaching
explanations of history
partners with histories meeting towards a quartet
 
day two
on the belly … after Yoga Nidra …
radiating softly
turning softly … exploring fluids …
cellular timing
 
Duet with Nadia softly guiding head-tail/extremities
amazing quality of touch because of the charge in her hands,
the knowledge she was listening to and guiding us both with ….
Lin following the tangible listening of this …hearing touch through skin … vibration
softly dynamic
 
mouth
     belly
         breath
               shaping
                           song
 
resound
            resilience
                        resonance
                                    respiration
                                                repetition
                                                            rehearsal
 
day three
shedding skin
            breaking ice
                        holding onto objects
            folding into time
                        ironing through wrinkles
            towards losing
losing everything,
fighting against losing
and finding yourself with a tail
and asking questions with only ….
“this I like”
 “this I like too”
“I like how you do what you do”
“I like it too”
 
and the snake song goes along
wrapping itself underneath
the music
where she stands …
these,
sounds of paper
“I love how it sounds”
 
she dances through the paper
she flies in the air
he goes upside down
            “I like this too”
“ this you …”
too
too
too
 
how music is made organically,
arrivals of losing
lose it faster
lose it lighter
lose it bigger
lose it slower
lose it, lose it, and lose it …
 
fight with, love it, and love what you do …
 
lose it singing …
 
songs of shedding
songs of unraveling
trails and tails
pathways to history,
breaking skins to begin.
 
after the practice, again I stare out into the room …
 
the elegance of paper
holding shapes,
dances frozen –
reading the flat paper with nothing on it
reading the wrinkles,
over and over
as it sounds
quality time
 
afterthoughts
 
waiting as writing
digestion as writing
elimination as writing
swallowing as writing
sounding as writing
vibration as writing
singing as writing
dancing as writing
writing as writing
 
The notion of somatic dramaturgy: a discussion in point form
  • how knowledge of the soma softens and expands our ways of “being ready”
  • a  state of readiness, instead of saying a place from which we can make a choice.
  • “readying the body”  so as to be part of what is happening, and allowing availability and listening skills into what your actions may be.
  • this is a new thought, Paola is suggesting … by taking away the word “choice’ it becomes less binary and more expansive … perhaps the choice choosing you …
  • never thought of it this way 

day three
We begin with Miranda’s exploration on Day three.
I change it a bit to accompany the somatic explorations we have done with Paola and Nadia: and also because it might “ready” the body in a more appropriate fashion
We find three places to describe to each other in the room …
and we explore them with our whole bodies, not just observing them with our eyes …
when we describe them to each other …
we articulate our sensations of the place,
we sound,
and create descriptions with and without words,
with shapes and sounds
and we ask others to  join us in discovering the acoustic of the space,
and its haptic qualities …
it is another way of describing.
……..
like a harp
like the inside of a shell
this water heater looks outside
its shaping exposed
my hands play over its surface
and how many times have I
been in studios with water heaters,
radiators they are called,
and yes, this one is radiant with memory …
 
now I am in Simone Forti’s loft on Broadway in New York City …
I am dancing in a class led by Danny Lepkoff …
he is a master of space and paying attention to how “it” shapes “us”
…. so much of
what we do is where we are …
there, back in the New York space,
I was constantly amazed at the grace of Simone Forti’s loft.
always a generous and playful space …
full of potential.
what is really invisible?
outside in, inside out …
travelling through
time
as this radiator permits so much travelling …
 
Paola puts her ear close in and
all of a sudden there is a spark
and there is also an orchestra of three
Guy, Nadia and Paola
play the radiator
radiating
outside in
and
inside out
the shape of this thing
a place containing water
tubes for resonance
spaces for travelling.
 
after the practice
 
surprise
I quite smoking
surprise
I never started
surprise
it is invisible, these rooms,
this room disappeared
and became
a whole new universe.
one with more clouds
and a woman dressed in black
standing on a chair
rescued by another fellow who has a
penchant for breaking things
can be trusted
and salivates
when he sings.
 
She broke through the canvas
singing something pastoral and Romanian all at once,
we were together in another country,
in a bar where everyone was
smoking and drinking and we were
celebrating
 
then we moved a bit to the left
and all our old habits disappeared
surprise
we are listening to grandparents
holding hands
mine and yours.
 
and yes,
there is something seductive
about the handle of the door
even though locked
“I like it”
“I really like it”
locked like a wall,
with a potential to open, the door stays shut,
and because of it
and moving a bit to the left
another door appears because
you look like a suitcase
“where are you going?”
“how far is it back to being a parent?”
the woman in black says
“now, that’s crazy”
as she remembers how to dance
and slides onto his back
then
surprise
everyone is laughing, I am too!
now cannot remember what was funny …
I am smiling
like a primitive urban,
a ritual
that deals with
symmetry and  clouds
and the constancy of birdsong.
 
(drawing of Nadia writing)
 
new definitions …
magma: texture in time.
‘sprezzatura’ : lightness in gesture and speech
 
Tanzfabrik showing
 
Guy began dancing with the “springee” floor,
everything softened the moment he began to dance,
stories he told of diplomacy
and the importance of
light in gesture and speech
seemed
appropriate for somatic dramaturgy or
somatic dramaturg,
he was his body
his body in lightness and speech
as the duet with Nadia and Guy began,
the room tilted sideways
and I sat in the chair as if
I was already there …
 “ where do I put my memory? she asks,
“down” I say
“put it down”
“but where?” she says
I cannot answer but remember
she places the tiny paper bird in a glass,
I picked it up … it’s import weightier
than I imagined,
I put it in the window
in fact
I , my
desire was to  put everything in the window …
the long line of our stories on paper
went out the window …
it was a kite
it was a flying tail/tale
into the air, my lungs
expiring/inspiring as I am dancing with Paola,
a little bit to the right of our habits
way to  the right of our habits
and all has been changed
 
new habits appearing as we fly into the air
as this swirling somatic practice
of fleeing
flying
lying
dying
sighing
and
the
why
why not
of it all
as we read to gather Paola into the suitcase
that is surprisingly light
as Guy turns the room around
bringing the chair through the air
placing it so
we both watch in wonder
as the brilliancy of your partnership
warms the whole room.
 
We are all somewhere else as
you speak together,
wrapping your hands around
your faces in the hilarious
wrinkles of time and friendship
this quality of time with value.
 
As Paola leaves Nadia against the wall … sleeping upright and humming
Guy goes out to join her …
and Paola and I begin
to sing with you as he
blindly believing your journey to the window
will bring back the lightness
as you descend slowly from his embrace
we all sigh together
with the somatic of drama.
 
Lin Snelling
 

notes

guy cools
Rewriting Distance in Berlin with Paola Bartoletti and Nadia Cusimano.
 
09/07/2013
In Memory of…
To lose or to fight with one’s memories.
Like shedding a skin or growing a tail or singing stories that you can’t tell.
‘I like what you do! I like it!’
We are transparent and our spinal column is a moist organ.
I like waiting and placing my arms on the table, pressing against the wood.
Our tails were connected like an umbilical cord and when it broke, I felt reborn. Like shedding my skin and discovering underneath the transparency of my fluidity.
Wrinkles are one of the most beautiful things, I know.
Why would you want to flatten them?
You can’t fight what you need to lose.
What remains:
  • Fragments of a shed skin
  • An umbilical cord
  • A long wedding veil
  • Pieces of a tail, bitten off
And all of these leaving somatic imprints on my tailbone, my belly button, my skull, my freckles and wrinkles.
‘I like what you do!’
‘Me too!’
‘Thank you.’
 
10/07/2013
(Miranda’s exercise to explore the space.)
I am attracted by the black hole in the tribune and when I look through it, I find this immense space behind it: a long, dark street and the screw in the middle looks like a lamppost. It is the experience of the magic boxes we had as kids.
While writing this, I notice my pen got deficient because the pressure on its tip, isn’t stable anymore and I think this is the result of the magic Paola cast on the first day. The pen is moving, becomes liquid like the marks of water drops left on the grey of the wood in front of me. And I like what it does to my handwriting.
And only now the most pregnant memory related to me looking through the dark hole comes back:  when I looked long enough, I really started to smell the wood, which reminded me of the wood shop of my ancestors and my love for wooden things, old wooden furniture in particular.
 
You were right not to completely trust me, after only two days.
And I did destroy a lot of things, when I was younger, especially on my birthday.
But then when you did, and gave over your weight to me and the instability and the newness of the experience made us create sounds together, wooh and aaah, it was as if we were together on a rollercoaster. A rollercoaster of somatic shifts and turns.
I no longer destroy my presents and I am even looking forward to celebrating it here in Berlin with my loved one(s). Although I will still worry for the absent ones.
And while telling the story of my grandparents’ lasting love, I gave myself  the answer to my question. I think it is a good thing in a relationship to find eventually each one’s side of the bed where you feel comfortable alone and together. And you can still move the bed together, if necessary.
Because maybe it is not so much changing your position towards each other but changing the general direction of the cardinal points: north-south in winter; east-west in spring; south-north in summer or west-east in autumn.
Another discovery we made together, which makes completely sense to me, is that there are only six chakras and six=one.
A guy comes into a radiator shop and asks ‘how much for that accordion?’ and the shopkeeper answers, ‘ I guess you must be a drummer’.
 
12/07/2013
(my 49th birthday, coming of age)
A couple of insights from this week/exchange.
The practice is a container that each time is filled with a new content, defined by the experience, skills and interests of the people in the room.
The complexity and richness of the quartet form, especially when duos come together and separate again with the third partner in the space functioning as a visual or auditory counterpoint and the fourth partner always grounding the experience in the witness seat/position, completing the quadrant.
On a somatic level, something very subtle has shifted on the cranial level by all the further opening of the throat and hearing. Curious how it will evolve and reveal itself in the coming days and months.
 
Berlin, July 2013
Guy Cools