Dramaturgie für eine Konferenz #2

The project series ‘Dramaturgy for a Conference’ by the Argentinean artist Matías Umpierrez creates space for thinkers and artists to explore questions of the times together in a performative way. Umpierrez commissioned Einat and Eyal Weizman to write a manual entitled ‘Negative Evidence’, which was given to four performers to develop a performance based on it. The four solo performances were originally to be presented at asphalt Festival 2021, but travel restrictions during the pandemic prevented this. Instead of cancelling the project, the artists developed a new concept for the dramaturgy of a conference in augmented reality, which will now be premiered at asphalt 2022.

The performers each place a specific event at the centre of an artistic work that exposes colonialist structures in their countries of origin. The Inuk performer Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory from Canada, the Xhosa choreographer Mamela Nyamza from South Africa, the Indian performer Mallika Taneja and the Icelandic choreographer Erna Ómarsdóttir follow the path of ‘forensic theatre’ set out in the manual.

The manual is a guide to redefine documentary theatre. Starting points are current documents of the 21st century such as tweets, blogs, photos, articles or videos. It analyses what constitutes a true statement today and whether art can help truth find a new, powerful expression. How do you find truth when there is no evidence? The transfer of the solo performances into augmented reality makes answering this question all the more exciting. The discourse on the perception of colonial power structures initiated in the process gains a special urgency in terms of content and aesthetics through the physical absence of the performers.

During the opening hours of the K21, tablets and headphones can be borrowed free of charge to experience the solo performances as an augmented reality installation. The audience can move around the K21’s outdoor area as well as the piazza and thus enter into a connection between virtual and analogue space.

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory from Canada is a ‘kalaaleq’ (Greenlandic Inuk) performance artist, poet, actor, storyteller and writer based in Iqaluit, Nunavut. She is known for performing ‘uaajeerneq’, a Greenlandic mask dance that involves storytelling and centers on three elements: fear, humour and sexuality. Laakkuluk describes ‘uaajeerneq’ as both a political and cultural act and an idiosyncratic art form. She realised her solo for ‘Dramaturgy for a conference #2’ together with her longtime collaborator Jamie Griffiths. The filmmaker, photographer, visual artist and performer is focused on issues of identity, wellness, transparency and colonialism, with exhibitions and performances in Canada, UK, US and EU. Griffith is working with cameras, sound, projections and light, using custom softwares for interactive installations and performances.

The choreographer and art activist Mamela Nyamza from South Africa is formally trained in Ballet. With her work she tackles the classical genre of dance, by deconstructing the traditional methods and logic of ballet and contemporary dance and explores the events of her childhood in the 1980s and cultural traditions, as well as contemporary social grievances surrounding HIV/AIDS, domestic and sexual violence and drug abuse. Her biography as a black African, lesbian mother also flows into her work.

Erna Ómarsdóttir from Island is a dancer, choreographer and rock singer whose works, created with explosive energy, read as a mix of storytelling, absurdity and horror, concertante elements and poetic images. Both as an independent artist and as artistic director of the Iceland Dance Company, Ómarsdóttir has created and directed a number of highly acclaimed works that have been shown worldwide and have received great international acclaim.

Mallika Taneja lives and works out of New Delhi, India. Through performances, installations and curatorial work, she explores questions of gender, solidarity, rest and remembering. She is particularly interested in exploring political possibilities of performative ensembles and the role songs have to play in leaving and gathering traces of people, places and things. Some of her works and collaborative spaces include ‘Be Careful’, ‘Allegedly’, ‘Rest of the Struggle’ and ‘Women Walk at Midnight’. She won the ZKB Acknowledgment Prize for ‘Be Careful’ in 2015 and the ZKB Patronage Prize for ‘Allegedly’ in 2021.

Einat Weizman is a playwright and director working primarily on documentary theatre. Eyal Weizman is an architect, writer, professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures and director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, London. His research agency ‘Forensic Architecture’ investigates crimes against humanity.

Matías Umpierrez is considered one of the most innovative theatre directors in Latin America; his projects with his company Plataforma Fluorescente, among others, tend to tread that fine line between theatre and visual art. His works are shown in theatres and museums worldwide, and he has also developed ‘site-specific performances’ in factories in Sâo Paulo and on mountain peaks in the Pyrenees, among other places.

The agency A4VR, based in Düsseldorf, is a European leader for concepts and applications in virtual and augmented reality. Together with A4VR, the first dramaturgy for a virtual conference was designed.