Premiere
Darko Radosavljev , There is no picture of my parents and me (until there was)
Small stage
Dates
There is no picture of Darko Radosavljev with his parents – until one suddenly one emerges. Using absence as its starting point, the performance unfolds as a choreographic exploration of memory, projection and the question of how family images are created. Moving between contemporary dance and pop cultural references, the body navigates different roles, projections and ideas of how one is seen – and how one invents oneself. Memories do not appear here as fixed narratives, but as something that changes through movement, repetition and embodiment.
Rather than trying to replace the missing image, the performance continuously creates new family images: fleeting, performed, contradictory. Clothing, music, and gestures become carriers of memory and transformation. Drawing from autobiographical material, Radosavljev develops a multilayered choreographic work about loss, identity, and the possibility of seeing oneself and others in a new light.
Choreographer and dancer Darko Radosavljev, born in Serbia, lives and works in Essen and Berlin. He studied dance and choreography at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels as well as art and politics at London’s Goldsmith University and the London School of Economics. He was the first dance stipendiary of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation from 2010 until 2015 while also receiving the Entrance Grant of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion for his solo performance Seascape in 2018. His works have been shown at the Liverpool Biennial, the Performing Arts Festival Berlin, Act! Bilbao, Tanzfabrik Berlin, Uferstudios Berlin, tanzhaus nrw, Pact Zollverein and at tanz nrw. Darko Radosavljev was a Folkwang Dance Studio ensemble member from 2017 until 2023 and has worked with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Boris Charmatz, Reinhild Hoffmann, Xavier Le Roy, Susanne Linke, Nevin Aladağ and others. There is no picture of my parents and me (until there was) is the second coproduction between him and tanzhaus nrw.
Duration: approx. 60 mins.
The performance includes passages in spoken English.
| Datum | Rahmenprogramm |
|---|---|
| Fri 22.05. 18:00 | Open Rehearsal |
| Sat 30.05. subsequently |
Artist Statement
“As a child, I loved playing with the costume chest at the nearby nursery. Most often, the pictures showing my parents, which I found in my grandma’s closet, inspired my playtime, and it was their roles I took on in these precious (to me) clothes. Only as an adult did I realise that in my playing, I attempted to balance that there is no picture showing my parents and me together.
With this project, I conclude my trilogy on embodied memory, thematically moving into an area I have thus far only metaphorically hinted at – my parents’ early death. This early breaking point also forms the nucleus of my previous work: My desire to bring bodies together that cannot be united (anymore) beyond the stage space. With this piece, I pursue the goal to open a space that demonstrates the projection of wishes and desires onto imagery and discloses the process how images and iconographies surrounding us leave their mark in us while we grow up, influencing our understanding of (our own) bodies and encounters in community. I recall the image of my teenaged father on two motorbikes he had screwed together himself. And my own gawky body at the same age, trying to find my way in modern dance. As a choreographic element, I weave together elements of fiction, meaning my fantasies about physical encounters and the acceptance of different (bodily) roles with non-fictional historic documents and personal items. A search for traces that invites us, in a process of lingering, of trying out, of exhausting a physical dialogue with imagery to develop a proprietary perspective upon a changing (family) portrait image.”
Artistic direction, choreography, performance: Darko Radosavljev; Dramaturgical consultation: Thomas Schaupp; Lighting and sound design: Jörn Nettingsmeier; Set and video design: Sébastien Dosantos Capouet; Set design: Daniel Mendoza; Research, consultation: Lena Tacke; Costume consultation: Lydia Sonderegger; Sound consultation: Manuel Riegler; Outside eye: Conal Francis-Martin; Photography performance: Ursula Kaufmann; Video documentation: Nathan Ishar; Production manager: Ludger Orlok.
A production by Darko Radosavljev, co-produced by tanzhaus nrw, supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Kunststiftung NRW and NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste.