PLAYBerlin: Music + Arts Platform » performance

REGGIE WATTS

deemeetree — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:36:22 +0000

Imagine you come to a show and realize midway through that you’re having a really strong trip. Reggie Watts’ intellectually stimulating hilariously clever improvised comedy beatbox performance does exactly this to the audiences.

In his stream-of-consciousness monologues combined with beautifully mastered beatbox interludes, Reggie shifts seamlessly between different personas, musical styles, accents, voices, and even – yes – bodies. He may be speaking in British cockney to explain how many Xanax he has taken, or as a ghetto youth with extensive knowledge of economic theory (“this world be fucking crazy, when you be looking at some virtualized numbers that symbolize shit that don’t exist”). Whoever witnesses this hilarious psychotic maze, goes through a succession of mental orgasms accompanied by endless fits of laughter.

Hailed as the “man of towering genius” by Brian Eno and the “comic genius” by GQ, Reggie Watts also regularly performs as the opening act for the popular Conan O’Brien TV show in the US. He also contributed two tracks to DFA Records’ Spaghetti Circus and performed with dance-punk band LCD Soundsystem. Reggie regularly performs at PS122 in NY.

Photo by Wendy Redfern
Conan OBrien
Popcomm
Video

TAMTAMTAM // The Waiting Room Project

deemeetree — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:05:09 +0000

The participants are invited for a series of interviews conducted by the hosts of the evening. The hosts are given a full carte-blanche to set up a social situation exploring the problematics and possibilities of an interview as a form of interaction. There are eight different rooms and each room carries with itself a different proposition: a therapy session, game, interrogation, exorcism, private performance, secret society gathering, audition, photo session – pretty much as far as the host’s fantasy goes.

The waiting room is the focal point of the whole space. As much as each individual interview that the participants go through is important, the waiting room becomes the place for random encounters between them. The experiences they go through during the interviews influence the way the participants relate to one another and contribute to creating an atmosphere where standard behaviors are suspended in favor of the hosts’ propositions.

Hans Ulrich Obrist said that “interviews have to do with liberating time”, finding a moment when one can relax and encounter the other without external pressure. The interview then is a matter of attention. In our project we attempt to create the time, space, and propositions that ignite that attention of the participants to one another. We want them to feel important, interested, and interesting. We want them to be the main protagonists, not just passive spectators, and to carry on this empowering feeling beyond the context we construct together.

The Waiting Room was premiered during our residency at Direktorenhaus (Berlin) in October 2010. The hosts for that event were Diego Agullo, Dmitry Paranyushkin, Peter Stamer, Isabel Lewis, Clement Layes, Ingrid Cogne, Daniel Hinojo, Christine Schmidt.
Trailer

TAMTAMTAM #12

deemeetree — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:44:40 +0000

This was the night of random encounters, great conversations, hidden pleasures, delicious fruits, ecstasy vodka, and crazy dancing.

At 20:30 we opened doors into the main Festsaal space where the only rule was that one could join in any conversation or create one’s own circle. It was a rare opportunity (after the busy two weeks of the festival) for the audience and choreographers to finally personally meet each other and speak about what they’ve seen and experienced during the festival. Those who were more into random encounters could freely float from one circle to another or create their own. We were also serving free fruits, nice food, great wine, and even vodka to help the conversational flows.

Then at 22:30 we brought this wonderful feeling of togetherness to the dancefloor and fuelled it with great music (an eclectic mix of african vibes, disco, and obscure, thick, amazing beats from DJs SWADANSI (aka Johannes Wengel) and Pieter from O Tannenbaum). The ecstasy vodka was flowing and the sychronization that started in the main Festsaal space was finally synchronized to the extent that’s indescribable and maybe even unforgettable, at least for some people.

We thank the Sophiensaele and Tanztage teams for all their help and support and also – all the guests and choreographers who made it happen. And also – Pieter from O Tannenbaum who is just the most amazing DJ out there. Check out their venue on Sonnenallee for more!

The next TAMTAMTAM will happen at a secret location on the 9th of February, so keep checking PLAYBerlin or even better – subscribe to our newsletter or join our Facebook group to stay in touch.

We also thank ourselves, that is, Diego Agullo and Dmitry Paranyushkin for being able to share 12 bottles of vodka with 200 people and staying alive. And especially – Johannes Wengel (aka DJ SWADANSI) – whose amazing set was supercrazywet and who was so kind to play beautiful background music during the first part of the evening!

Group photo by Paul Schoen.

Also, you may be interested in this behind the scenes report about the event.

Vimeo
Part 2

The Life Skills Series

deemeetree — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:43:04 +0000

The Life Skills is an educational video project initiated by Dmitry Paranyushkin and The Solvents. It is a composition of short interviews where people are invited to share a skill that they have. Proposed to share their knowledge in a concise, yet comprehensive manner, spelling out every detail that goes through their mind while performing the activity, protagonists give an account of seemingly ordinary activities in a very extraordinary way. The question is always the same, and the answer is easily predictable,however what comes out from The Life Skills is the specificity of each individual in the way they approach the task and interact with the interviewer. Over time these small details become more visible than the actual skill relayed. As a result, something very personal, subjective, and even emotional is given enough space to emerge within the space that’s predictable, generic, and everyday.

Some people who took part in The Life Skills Series: Diego Agullo, Matt Lord, Celine Smith, Klaus Kruse, Dani d’Emilia, Christine de Smedt, Johannes Wengel, Myriam van Imschoot, Jan Ritsema, Emma Kim Hagdahl, Fruszi Jesse, Berno odo Polzner, Nikolaus Gansterer, Peter van Bogaert, Peter Ampe, Lenia Kaklea, Jonas Nachtergale, and others.

Subscribe to The Life Skills channel on Vimeo to be informed when the new series are out.
Trailer

SOPHIENSAELE

deemeetree — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:17:03 +0000

Another one of Berlin’s better and more daring theaters, the Sophiensaele is a great place to check out the Berlin performance scene. They have a clear commitment to contemporary/expiremental performance despite its antique facade and beautiful corridors. The curators are frequently challenging conventional theater practices by offering lots of opportunities for young artists and hosting festivals like 100 grad theater festival and Tanztage. They are also one of the hosts for one of Europe’s biggest contemporary dance festivals – Tanz im August. The Sophiensaele also offers residency opportunities and are involved in co-productions with other theaters. Regardless of your aesthetic interests, Sophiensaele is definitely a theater worth checking out.
Sophiensaele

Title in Process by Xavier Le Roy

deemeetree — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:53:12 +0000

This new production cannot be labeled. The play for nine performers reflects on the community of bodies and the co-presence of actors and spectators in the theatrical situation. Initially it originated in research on movements and sounds by machines and animals. With the ongoing time this material developed into situations that the spectator can look at as if they were landscapes. Criteria to especially judge dance like virtuosity, dynamics or aesthetics are only of limited validity here in trying to explain the logic behind it all.

Production: Le Kwatt Montpellier, co-production: TQW Vienna, DRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, HAU.
Xavier

LIGIA MANUELA LEWIS

deemeetree — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:44:50 +0000

BIO

Ligia Manuela Lewis, born in Santo,Domingo(DR) but raised in Venice, FL is a dance artist currently residing in Berlin(DE). She recieved her B.F.A in Dance/Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2005 and upon graduating moved to Europe. Alongside her own research Ligia has performed for theater company Superamas(FR),toured extensively with dance company Les Ballets C de la B(BE), and collaborates regularly with Lewis Forever- www.lewisforever.com -a family collective based between Berlin and New York. She was awarded the DanceWEB scholarship (AT) for 2010. Ligia recently finished her second creation with Berlin based choreographer Kat Valastur with upcoming performances at the HAU. She will begin her first collaboration with choreographer Christoph Winkler which will premier at the Sophiensaele in the Spring.

HEBBEL AM UFER

deemeetree — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:25:14 +0000

The HAU features contemporary theatre and dance performances that are innovative and pioneering in its field. The HAU is comprised of three contrasting theater venues and an nice Italian cafe. Such renowned festivals as Tanz im August and the recently developed Context Festival are hosted here, which helps define Berlin’s leading role for contemporary dance in Europe. Located in the middle of the hip disctrict of Kreuzberg, this theater aptly subscribes to supporing this image of itself, with fresh and always engaging performances.

HEBBEL AM UFER – HAU 1: Stresemannstr. 29 / 10963 Berlin
HEBBEL AM UFER – HAU 2: Hallesches Ufer 32 / 10963 Berlin
HEBBEL AM UFER – HAU 3: Tempelhofer Ufer 10 / 10963 Berlin
Garder

JUSTIN PALERMO

ira — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:49:12 +0000

Justin Palermo is a visual and performance artist from Detroit based in Berlin. Often inspired by childhood memories and personal biographies, he creates unique and intimate worlds that combine intensity and innocence, playfulness and obsession with detail. His works possess great allure and emotion, inviting the spectator to reconsider the notions of personal history, time, and imagination.

“I am fascinated by the tiny accumulations of a person’s life. I’m even more fascinated by what gets left behind, with what remains.
I search for a way to use these materials to tell a new story – a story we’ve seen in parts but never quite all together. The stories behind the work cannot be pinned down quickly. These are narratives without beginnings or ends, with more gaps than solids.”

All drawings and artwork by Justin Palermo, Photos by Miguel Lopes and Stefan Mark Faerber

MMX BERLIN

deemeetree — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:20:28 +0000

MMX open art venue is an artist run, non-profit space that will exist for one year in Berlin’s commercial gallery street Linienstraße in Mitte. The project began in January 2010 and will close on December 31, 2010 by welcoming in the New Year. Started by four friends: Berlin based photographer Jonathan Gröger, artist Rebecca Loyche from New York, artist Daniel Wilson from Canada, Philip Eggereglüß from Germany and later joining the team American Jason Burgess. MMX occupies the ground floor and surrounding garden area of one of the last untouched, unrenovated buildings left on Linienstraße. The art space transformed out of a squatted dilapidated building into one of Berlin’s most popular alternative art venues overnight. With a concentration on presenting talented but underexposed art throughout the +1000sqm that MMX occupies with it’s several gallery rooms, video screening room, a music venue space, a back courtyard, and one of the only front gardens in the district. MMX strives to bring people and art together by presenting exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, musical and dance performances, and unique weekly events. The last Show opens on October 29 and runs until December 3, 2010.
Performance at MMX

PERFORMER STAMMTISCH

deemeetree — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:03:21 +0000

Performer Stammtisch is a no budget, voluntary work network of performance artists, working to improve the working conditions for performance artists in Berlin. It is curated by Jörn J. Burmester, Janine Eisenächer and Florian Feigl, who are primarily driven by the urge to see more good, new performance art. We offer a monthly meeting for performance art professionals and their friends, where we present what we are working on to each other, and we strongly encourage newly arrived artists, or artists passing through Berlin to show their work, discuss it, and meet colleagues.
Performer Stammtisch

Lucky Trimmer Dance + Performance Series

deemeetree — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:50:51 +0000

The slightly different show within the Berlin scene presents its latest edition in co-operation with the Volksbühne

LUCKY TRIMMER is cult and invites you to a new tour de force through the secrets of the creative underground kitchen in national and international dance and performance art. Out of more than 200 applications our unassimilated and weatherproof jury has selected those pieces which are surprising, convincing, controversial, astonishing, wondrous or simply fun. Of course our 10-minute-limit per piece is as always holy and unavoidable. The result is an explosive gourmet-snack-menu with 9 courses. This time among others we will see award winning ballet (Stephen Delattre), award winning duet (Nadar Rosano), strolling boards (Yukihiro Taguchi), hovering hearts (Peter Trabner), insights into a water kettle (Asher Lev), insights into the complex world of numbers beyond 8 (Boglárka Börcsök) as well as the long awaited and inevitable return of Jessy & Lei (Jessy Tuddenham). All clear? No? Good!

Lucky Trimmer 2009

“Library” by Tim Etchells and Ant Hampton

admin — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:00:33 +0000

About

LIBRARY (Tour 1)
The Quiet Volume by Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells, London/Sheffield
“The Quiet Volume” is a whispered, self-generated performance for two visitors each in the reading room of a library. The play explores the suspense in libraries around the world, this mixture of silence and concentration, where people indulge in books in their quite individual way.
Two participants sit next to each other in front of a pile of books, receiving assignments via index cards, notes and headphones. This provides for a trail between the pages of a book. During 45 minutes there will be this intimate magic that is inherent in intimate readings.
With his group Rotozaza Ant Hampton has continuously enlarged the circumstances of theatre with new forms of inter-activity. “The Quiet Volume” is his first co-operation with Tim Etchells, the artistic mastermind of the British live-art-collective Forced Entertainment.

In co-production with Vooruit Arts Centre, Belgium.

17. SEPT. / 11 AM – 6 PM
18. + 19. SEPT. / 12 AM – 5 PM
21. + 22. + 23. SEPT. / 4 PM – 9 PM
24. SEPT. / 11 AM – 6 PM
(Starts every 20 minutes; ticket reservation necessary, 030 – 259004 27)

Length: 150 min.
meeting point: Universitätsbibliothek
der Humboldt-Universität, Standort
Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, Geschwister-Scholl-Str. 1/3, Mitte
Tim Etchells

TAMTAMTAM Presents: Chapter 1

deemeetree — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:57:37 +0000

TAMTAMTAM Residency at Direktorenhaus

We would like to invite you to join TAMTAMTAM for our residency at Direktorenhaus in Berlin. For two months we will be experimenting in playing, interacting, making things, disrupting the interfaces, learning, cheating, partying, dancing, solidifying waves of occurence, being surrounded by quick crystals, sleeping, and eating together.

At the first event, on Friday, 10th of September, we occupied 8 rooms with 8 ways of having an idea. We all received tasks and spatially distributed proposals to give some initial friction necessary to start the movement. Together with our guests we generated ideas about how to reside in Direktorenhaus during the next two months.

See more images and videos in How to Reside post.

Your guides for the evening:

Johannes Wengel

John Erik Jordan

Jessica Taylor

Eric Green

Diego Agullo

Dmitry Paranyushkin

Marija Ivosevic

Clement Layes

Sarah Lewis

Ligia Lewis

How to Reside / TAMTAMTAM

JOHANNES WENGEL

deemeetree — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:42:30 +0000

Johannes Wengel is the co-founder of PLAYBerlin, TAMTAMTAM Collective and ThisIsLike.Com. He lives and works in a lot of ways. Under the name SWADANSI he is the resident of TAMTAMTAM and O Tannenbaum nights.

DIEGO AGULLO

deemeetree — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:29:26 +0000

Graduated in Philosophy (Universidad Autónoma Madrid). It´s now or never. Since 2005 based in Berlin crossing the fields of video, performance and music. He squeezes fresh juice every morning.

He divides his time between Berlin and Amsterdam in collaboration with the SNDO (The school for New Dance Development) and performing in international festivals like iDans Istanbul, Plateaux Frankfurt, Context #7 HAU Berlin, Something Raw Frascati, Baku Biennale, Vilnius Biennale. Sometimes he forgets to breath.

His video works have been presented in 57 Berlinale Filmfestspiele Panorama section 2007, MONA Detroit´s Contemporary Museum, Dance Theater Workshop New York, Asahi Art Square Tokio, Thessaloniki Film Fesival, Xtend2010 Digital Media Center Oxford, Athens video art, Experimenta Club Casa Encendida, POOL 07 Dock 11, Musée des Abbatoirs Toulouse. He is a fan.

Diego is member of En Busca del Pasto, a project for musical improvisation. Ellenbogen is his solo project. He waters stones since 1995.

Currently he works with Dimitry Paranyushkin developing the survival technique called Transnomia.

Some video
Transnomia Calibration

DMITRY PARANYUSHKIN

deemeetree — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:04:41 +0000

Dmitry Paranyushkin researches networks, human beings, dysfunctional interfaces, non-equilibrium states, and having more than two choices but less than four. He is also the co-founder of PLAYBerlin and TAMTAMTAM collective and the founder of ThisIsLike.Com.

Republic #1-4 @ Context Festival

deemeetree — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:13:51 +0000

REPUBLIC #1-4 – ANAT EISENBERG, BERLIN

#1 22.01.2011 / 22.30 UHR / HAU 2
#2 23.01.2011 / 22.30 UHR / HAU 2
#3 28.01.2011 / 22.00 UHR / HAU 2
#4 29.01.2011 / 22.00 UHR / HAU 2

“Does the performance make the stage, or does the stage make the performance?”
Anat Eisenberg exaggerates the theatre space during four evenings and in four versions. In playing
with roles, behaviour and hopes she is testing the relation between performance and observation.
Concept: Anat Eisenberg, Dramaturgy: Mirko Winkel, Assistance: Ligia Manuela Lewis, Contribution: Dana Yahalomi

Co-production: HAU, sponsored by The Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.

Tickets Online