Valentin Rion Schmehl
Inversion-of-a-future-Ural-2.jpg

Artistic Research. Inversion of a Future 2020

Inversion of a Future - Artistic Research 2020/21

Inversion of a Future

Inversion of a future is an artistic research connecting dance, music and stunt craft.

In the not too distant future, replactions will be a part of our society, our organs, our cells. Our identity will be a shared variation of its origins, the mission to embody another being will become the destiny of many. Our desire for the impossible extremes will delegate our physical realities to experts – who will be the chosen ones? And where does fear and sensation settle in the future?  

 It aims to bring cinematic stunt doubles into a performative foreground in order to speak about survival instincts in the digital era. We investigate the world of stunt-craft in theatre and film, to highlight the relationship between illusion and reality, dive into the future of replication and cherish the embodiment of physical extreme situations.

It comprises theoretical readings, online video research, interviews with stunt people and other relevant professionals as well as physical and musical experiments in the studio.

The goals of the research are to develop a contemporary artistic language between dance, music and stunts and to merge these three fields as means for story telling about the future, doubles and fear. During the project we will gather intellectual and aesthetic material to advance stunt work in contemporary artistic contexts and develop new movement- and musical materials for stunt performers. Ultimately the research result will serve the creation of a live performance.

This year long research is supported by the Berlin Senat and the Fonds Darstellende Künste starting in April 2020.

A first performative installation was shown at Ural Biennale 2021 in Ekaterinburg.

The aim is to create a large scale contemporary opera based on the artistic language of physical extreme situations and its cultural implications. 

Artistic Research

Shiran Eliaserov (Choreography)

Amir Shpilman (Composition)

Valentin Schmehl (Dramaturgy)

 
Choreographie und Künstlerische Leitung: Shiran Eliaserov Komposition & Tonbearbeitung: Or Solomon Performer: Andre Lewski, Ardian Hartono, Volker Sobottke, Vanessa Cokaric, Egan Chan, Jessica Comis, Alma Dolev Goldenberg. Choreographische Beratung: Gal Naor Dramaturgie: Valentin Schmehl Licht: Johan Planefeldt Kostüme: Shiran Eliaserov Mentor*innen: Omer Fast & Frieda Schneider Akademische Betreuung: Susanne Vincenz Technische Leitung: Max Stelzl A Rope is a mean of survival to mankind, in the individual as in the social scale. The rope is being used for “gathering” but also becomes a separating tool, a limiting instrument. Its material significance to humans underlines a complex network of dangers, accidents, and existential obligations. Today the need of survival is decontextualized from its origins and is creating a hyperspace for explorations, interweaving its symbolic and aesthetic dimensions to open up a space for myth and ritual. Through an anthropological approach, Beyond control examine how power condenses in the material and metaphor “Rope”. Calling for a contemporary myth along the material of the rope, the team worked with archetypes. It became unavoidable to discern our relation to these archetypes today, asking if we can find some sorts of original roots to what we represented or embodied when entering these forms. The mythical dimension of the work needed to be a collaboration of spirituality and science, both perspectives moving the group to take specific aesthetic decisions. The rope easily connected our private present to the cultural histories of gender, colonization, sexuality, and morals of punishment. Unconscious at first, the performance Beyond Control actualizes a journey into “the art of losing control” (Jules Evans, 2017), entering through the embodiment of different cultural references to the power of ropes, each connected to the performers’ personal backgrounds. This individual research then makes spaces for a group merging, giving (and taking) a safe space for letting go of control. From there, the collective can formulate models of the future – of how we become masters of our own mirrors, engineers of biomorphic clones and gods within centuries.

Photos © Shiran Eliaserov, Holytropic