with works by Christoph Speit, Joana Kern & Bruna Cabral, MFK Bochum

The pandemic changes the independent scene’s modes of production and presentation. Premieres are being postponed, cancelled, presented as live streams, or reworked into film adaptations. Grant-like support focussing on research processes and open-ended work on artistic ideas make it possible for many artists to continue working. The June edition of Now & Next – the platform for up-and-coming artists from North Rhine-Westphalia – will be dedicated to those transformed working conditions for young artists. Christoph Speit, Joana Kern & Bruna Cabral as well as MFK Bochum are going to show how and what they have been working on throughout the last few months during a ZOOM webinar. Insights into research, video snippets, incomplete items, but also experimental approaches will be presented and discussed with the public.

Christoph Speit participated in our spring residency that offered regional up-an-coming artists an opportunity to conduct research and to rehearse at tanzhaus nrw in March. Within the Now & Next format, he will show excerpts from his work process “ARCH_TMC it feels like I put sunglasses on”, in which he negotiates the establishment of systems and the body that functions within them in reference to clubs and raves. Because these spaces can no longer be accessed during the pandemic, their significance as havens and their strength-imbuing potential become especially obvious.

Dancer Joana Kern, together with Brazilian musician Bruna Cabral, will provide insight into her research work “GINGA”. Supported by the ‘TakeCare’ residency programme of the FONDS Darstellende Künste, she has been dealing with topics and questions relating to cultural identity, colonialism and migration in the last few months. The “Ginga” was the starting point for the research undertaken by the German-Brazilian dancer: The term denotes the basic step in Brazilian martial art Capoeira, which is closely linked to enslavement and the spiritual roots of African cultures.

The German word for “uproar”, “Lärm”, derives from “al arm” –“to your weapons!” -, and therefore, it has always stood in a context of violence. An uproar may be an assault on individual boundaries through noises. In the “noise as touch” research, Franziska Schneeberger, Katarína Markovà and Marlene Ruther (MFK Bochum) ponder the question how soundwaves handle bodies. Be it in the form of transgressive uproar, socially connecting ecstasy or the attunement to the micromovements in muscle tissue: Which movement forms may be formulated by bodies as an answer to the noise in the surroundings, and what has that got to do with touch?

Duration: 90 min. / Warning: strobe effect

Please note: With the purchase of a solidarity ticket (I for 10 € or II for 17 €) you can now visit tanzhaus nrw. Of course, you can also book a ticket at the normal price (€ 3). After booking you’ll receive the link to the event 1 hour before the performance starts. Just in case please also check your junk folder.