Schönheitsabend

Choreographic duo Florentina Holzinger and Vincent Riebeek quickly made a name for themselves in the European dance scene with provocative performances on contemporary body images. In their play “Schönheitsabend”, they take a look back on almost forgotten historical examples from dance history: Artist pairs such as Vaslav Nijinsky and Ida Rubinstein or Anita Berber and Sebastian Droste, pairs in which they found antecedents for their own transgressive aesthetics. During their research, Florentina Holzinger and Vincent Riebeek came upon a string of dance avant-garde ancestors from the onset of the 20^th century, who, just like they do themselves, developed new ideas about beauty while working with insanity, ecstasy, explicit erotics and self-alienation within exoticism.They appropriate the Ballets Russes classic „“Shéhérazade” without really being proficient in ballet technique, and from this, they form an absurd love story woven throughout ballet history. Following the classic three act model, they exhibit dances of sin, of horror and of ecstasy in which they take a postcolonialist look at orientalism from the vantage point of pop culture, fantasising themselves into the midst of the utopia of a queer future.

Following the trilogy “Kein Applaus für Scheiße” (“No Applause for Crap”), “Spirit” and “Wellness”, “Schönheitsabend” is the fourth collaboration between Florentina Holzinger and Vincent Riebeek. Florentina Holzinger’s solo “Silk“ won the Prix Jardin d’Europe Award at the ImPuls Dance Festival  in 2012. She, born in Vienna, and Dutch-born Vincent Riebeek started working together while they were still enrolled at the Amsterdam School for New Dance Development.

Duration: 60 min. / Recommended for viewers aged 18 and above.