An Evening-length Performance

The works of the Berlin-based, Australian-born choreographer and dancer James Batchelor lure the audience into a hypnotic spell, as they are invitations for a dive into imaginative worlds. An Evening-length Performance – his current work, premiering this year at Tanz im August – examines the baroque ballroom as the architectural frame for social choreography and common expression. The staging of ballroom dance refers to the performative qualities of the stage space. With sensitivity, delicate and confident, four performers embody a shared movement vocabulary in which their personal movement histories resonate. When the theatre stage is freed from inscribed rules and regimes, the space’s formality shifts, enabling moments of subtlety and intimacy.

James Batchelor and his collaborators will see their first guest performance at tanzhaus nrw with An Evening-Length Performance. We initially encountered James Batchelor and his works when he participated in an Antarctica-bound expedition with a team of scientists, joining them on an exploratory vessel, in 2016. James Batchelor transformed the fascination of floating on the ocean surface with a ship, studying the body in this exceptional space in movement, into the detailed choreography Deepspace. He works in the media of dance, film, music, and sculpture, in which he puts the body under the tensions of distance and nearness, communion and isolation, certainty and insecurity. This results in haunting performances of strong effect that manage to thrill international audiences.

Duration: 60 min.
Attention: Use of loud music