Mist and magic
Mist and Magic
the unfolding of a biographic fantasy in more than one act
In Mist and Magic a clump of gold, a dwarf, turbans, a magic flute, drum-sticks and a 400 year old oak tree appear, as pieces of music by Wagner, Mozart, Ravel and others emerge as sedimented artifacts. Mist and Magic attempts to handle one's own biography in a fantastic-fictional way by recalling early artistic experiences and treating them as choreographic material. I wonder, can theatre become a place of collective history that includes histories of hierarchies, power and suppression, of pleasure and exhilaration, glorious secrecy, mist and magic?
What forms of presence does a past evoke? Curious about the connection between dance and voice, musicality and communication, I work with a practice that includes the dancer's voice as a way of poetic moving - in order to let emerge layers of imagination, feeling, narrative, expressivity and the fantastic.
Dancing and performing were closely linked to learning for me, from very early on. Fueled by an interest in the critical reflection on the notion of classic and specific works of a european canon, I question their function and their possibilities, as I continue writing them, as a freelancer also outside of the institution. Through my practice (as dancer and teacher) I begin to consider an artwork of choreography not just as the visual and physical happening on stage but as all the processes of learning and transmitting of information: of embodying and copying, of the ways I as a dancer continue to speak (about) movement while performing. Which environments are created by keeping alive oral and physical knowledge of dance processes? What are conditions to reuse these by other dancers? Within Mist and Magic I propose a practice of change - perhaps not by destroying, forgetting and breaking but by carefully reformulating, leaving out and adding on.
The corporeal experience of non-linear time is a powerful one and I am interested in the processes of transforming with it. Which roles and identities emerge, what are we embodying as we move, listening and responding to the world?
Credits
Idea, Choreography, Text and Performance: Eva-Maria Schaller
Sounddesign: Manuel Riegler
Voice: Mani Obeya
Supervision and Artistic advice: Martin Sonderkamp
Thanks to Chrysa Parkinson and Thanks to the fantastic NPP group 2021-2023 for continuous support, connection and inspiration.
