TALKING HEAD

As test subjects, performers are placed into atwittertubeandfacebook apparatus, in which absurd characters emerge following the dictate of current online-happenings. The performers are constructing, direct and live on stage, text sculptures as a form
of dance and an ever-new image of themseives via webcam.

Talking Matroschkas or a small Tower of Babylon.
The glossolalia of Christian antiquity, the automatic writing of the Surrealists, black metal’s growling –those are just some of the numerous acts of speech/writing of the finding of oneself within losing, of the giving up of will, because of a hope of gained insight.

Advanced Modern Talking Heads have found their place on the web. From the social networks we hear the droning of the polyphonic babble of simulated communication, which won’t give a hoot for the old distinction between original and copy, but rather builds its nest in an unsafe “space between”. People tweeting about a state of identity, which will be a completely different one tomorrow. In the biblical sense of the “talkers in tongues” we may be made to believe: we are being spoken by the Web 2.0 – it talks through us Talking Heads on the base of the actual Laws of the online world. The term Talking Head does not only recall one of the most successful New Wave bands of the 1970/80’s turn of the decade, it also denotes the frame of a
close-up camera shot on the speaker. But what is talking head that is of a sound mind (no religion, no drugs), whose experimental goal would be to improvise in various jargons of speech? E.g. the sociological lingo of the explorers of the precariate, the tech-talk of IT wizards, the BA-slang of neo-liberal worshippers of the economy, or the feverish post structural discourse of dance theoreticians. Even if all forms of crude parody are to be disregarded, there is, with every form of expert
jargon, if only for its tendency to exclude, always an urge for democratic contradiction; be it in the form of ironic subversion of it’s gestus of dominion, or alternatively, by its transformation into different fields of representation, which make it more difficult to “swagger” or make the “hot air”, which always resonates, more quickly distinguishable. Take for example the discursive experiment of placing two dancing Talking Heads on a stage.

CREDITS
Performance and Choreography: Stephanie Cumming, Luke Baio Artistic Direction and Choreography: Chris Haring
Composition, Sound: Andreas Berger (Glim)
Stage and Light Design: Thomas J. JelinekSet Design: Gerald Priewasser
Production Management and Research: Marlies Pucher Technical Direction: Roman Harrer
Video Technics: Ella Esque, Niki Passath
Theory and Text: Fritz Ostermayer
Video: Michael Loizenbauer
A production by Liquid Loft in collaboration with Tanzquartier Wien.
Premiere: December 9th, 2010 Tanzquartier Wien Liquid Loft is supported by MA 7 Kulturabteilung Stadt Wien and BMUKK for Unterricht Kunst und Kultur.
Photo by: Chris Haring

For more informations, riders, press map, financial conditions please contact Line Rousseau or Marion Gauvent

AGENDA
under construction

2016

02 October 2016 Wroclaw ESK 2016, PL

2015

15 June 2015  IKS Festival Split, HR

06 February 2015  Mois Multi, Quebec, CA

05 February 2015  Mois Multi, Quebec, CA

04 February 2015  Mois Multi, Quebec, CA

2014

20 November 2014  (excerpt) Rennweg Studios, Vienna, AT

22 August 2014  (excerpt) Salotto Vienna Trieste, IT

12 August 2014  Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT

11 August 2014  Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT

10 August 2014  Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT

2013

20 September 2013  Aura Festival, Kaunas, LI

07 September 2013  Tanzlabor 21 / Mousonturm Frankfurt aM, DE

06 September 2013  Tanzlabor 21 / Mousonturm Frankfurt aM, DE

06 April 2013  La Briqueterie/CDC du Val de Marne/Festival EXIT Mac Créteil, FR

05 April 2013  La Briqueterie/CDC du Val de Marne/Festival EXIT Mac Créteil, FR

04 April 2013  La Briqueterie/CDC du Val de Marne/Festival EXIT Mac Créteil, FR

26 January 2013  Trafo Budapest, HU

25 January 2013 Trafo Budapest, HU

2012

03 December 2012  Access to Dance / Muffathalle, München, DE

30 September 2012  Sofia Dance Week, BG

29 May 2012  Gavella / Dance Week Festival, Zagreb, HR

28 May 2012  Gavella / Dance Week Festival, Zagreb, HR

20 April 2012  Teatr Wspolczesny / Kontrapunkt Festival, Szeczin, PL

03 April 2012  Belgrade Int Dance Festival, RS

31 March 2012  Hall / Tirol, AT

2011

18 November 2011  Tanzquartier Wien, AT

26 August 2011  Fronta Festival, Murska Sobota, SL

12 August 2011  ODEON / Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT

11 August 2011  ODEON / Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, AT

16 June 2011  TanzIst Dornbirn, AT

15 June 2011  TanzIst Dornbirn, AT

2010

11 December 2010  Tanzquartier Wien, AT

10 December 2010  Tanzquartier Wien

09 December 2010  Tanzquartier Wien, AT