"The Art of Memory"

Variations around women choreographers

of the Viennese Avant-Garde

a composition for an evening in 3 stations

By Loulou Omer and Simon Wachsmuth

Qing

by Simon Wachsmuth
- - - - - - - -

Fast Ein Wunder - Reenacting Gertrud Kraus

by Loulou Omer

- - - - - - - -

Performative exchange with the audience

This “composed” evening is structured around 3 stations in the form of a journey through a part of the history of dance around two women figures of Viennese Modern Dance, Dita and Gertie Tenger as well as Gertrud Kraus. These choreographers have the particularity that they are closely linked to the family history of Loulou Omer and Simon Wachsmuth, and have also marked their respective artistic gestures:

• The screen-dance video-installation “Qing”, is a tribute to Gertie and Dita Tenger, respectively grandmother and great-aunt of Simon Wachsmuth, dancer and choreographer of Viennese Modern Dance, who are linked to the current of the “Danse libre”.

• The poly-artistic dance performance, “Au Hasard la Mémoire” is a tribute to Gertrud Kraus, one of the eminent choreographers of expressionism and the Viennese avant-gardes of the interwar period. She trained the mother of Loulou Omer who later joined her company and then created her own dance school.

• A performative exchange and discussion with the audience in the company of a dance specialist.

This “composed” evening also raises the question of memory, of the personal biographies of the artists in a broader context of History. The proposed works question the artistic trace that we carry by transmission, the way in which bodily gestures and dance are transformed, which change not only in time and place, but also in artistic expressions through their reactivation. This way Loulou Omer and Simon Wachsmuth also intend to share these questions with the audience through a performative exchange.

- - - - - - - -

Qing

How do you represent history through artistic means? What are the possibilities of establishing current links with past events and how can interaction with material objects contribute to such a process? What kind of "body baggage" does a dancer take with her when she is forced into exile? These are some of the questions Simon Wachsmuth answers in his video installation "Qing".

At a time when it was still possible to receive mail from China in Vienna, Gertie Tenger-Wachsmuth received a package from her sister Dita who had moved to Shanghai to flee National Socialism. The package contained three silk robes from the late Qing dynasty that ruled the Chinese Empire from 1644 to 1911.

The "Qing" video installation is a choreographed journey through time and space. The film propels Gertie Tenger on the journey she never was able to make, from Vienna to Shanghai, from West to East. „Qing“ plays with the material and the suggestive qualities of the objects, the fineness of the fabric and the fragility of the porcelain. Loulou Omer's choreography and dance animate the objects, which sometimes seem to offer protection, sometimes represent the disturbing encounter with the unknown. Although the objects are intertwined with the artist's family history, they transcend their meaning in the present and thus tell a story that stems from uprooting and the experience of strangeness.

- - - - - - - -

Fast ein Wunder - Reenacting Gertrud Kraus. It is a homage to the woman whose life, passion and work were groundbreaking for my mother's artistic development - and who subsequently significantly influenced my own artistic being, my joie de vivre. At the same time, it is a tribute to my mother, who passed all of this on to me.

It is an intimate choreographic ode, the result of a ghost dialogue between Loulou Omer and Gertrud Kraus. A ghostly conversation, because the person we were talking to is no longer alive and her work has hardly left any traces. It is hearing an absence, wanting to evoke that absence, to restore the past. A life, a work, a story to act out. It is the will to create a memory out of oblivion.

This dance piece to celebrate all women, all mothers, not just birth mothers, but also all those who lived, worked, created and passed on and then were erased from the narrative of history.

- - - - - - - -

Performative exchange with the audience

An important part of the evening is the exchange with the audience in order to reflect on the topics of the evening. A playful and intuitive approach is used to break down inhibitions and enable a different approach.

Playful experiments will be carried out with an artistic, collective-popular heirloom that is defined in advance with the institution and in relation to the cultural background of the audience. Whether artist, song, narrative, image... like an archive fragment, we will call it forth from the past in order to revive together a piece of our history, our roots, our heritage, which may otherwise remain hidden. "Witnesses" can also be invited.

Depending on the interests and possibilities of the venue and the audience, the performative exchange will be developed together in order to respond to the specific needs of the audiences.