Schubot/

Gradinger

LES PETITES MORTS :

ALL MY HOLES ARE THEIRS

2013

CAN ONE MAKE THEIR SELF DISAPPEAR through an ultimate dedication to a third; relinquishing one's Self to one's own dissolution? And what does it mean for the visibility of the third person? Can the 'I-ing' of the three performers be transformed into intimacy? Can one die for someone else?
ALL MY HOLES ARE THEIRS is a trio by Aleesa Cohene and Jared Gradinger / Angela Schubot. After i hope you die soon it is the second part of their project Les petites morts, an examination of the topic of death and dying. This piece is the attempt by two performers to disappear through radical devotion to a third. For Gradinger and Schubot, Cohene becomes the sole existing universe. But all my holes are theirs is also an intimate solo by and for Aleesa Cohene, who appears on stage as a dancer for the first time in this project.

YEW

SOON YOU ARE THEIRS:F

SOON YOU ARE THEIRS:RS

LES PETITES MORTS:AMHAT

Choreography and performance: Aleesa Cohene, Jared Gradinger & Angela Schubot  Music: Datashock from the album Die Pyramiden von Geißen engineered by Tian Rotteveel Lighting design: Andreas Harder Artistic collaboration: Sigal Zouk  Costume: Heidi Lunaire  Press & production: björn & björn

Production: Angela Schubot / Jared Gradinger in collaboration with Aleesa Cohene. Co-production with Sophiensæle, HAU1 Hebbel am Ufer, Südpol Luzern and Les Grandes Traversées. Supported by the University of Toronto German/Europe Research and Study Fund. Made possible by funding from the Capital Cultural Fund.

LES PETITES MORTS:IHYDS

IS MAYBE

WHAT THEY ARE INSTEAD OF

"Dying with and for one another is the pictorial theme of the performance "Les petites morts". "The little deaths", which the title means, but idiomatically also stands for an orgasm in the plural. Together with the subtitle "All my holes are theirs" and the three performers in the cast, this initially arouses expectations of a ménage à trois, sweat, nudity, explicites. But it all turns out quite differently: platonic, amiable, solemn. (.....) In "All my holes are theirs" the positive symbiosis then succeeds as the sum of the studies, and probably precisely because there are consciously perceived limitations. And above all also because of the Canadian video artist and philosopher Aleesa Cohene, who is on stage with us. Gradinger and Schubot almost fit together in the outline of her voluminous body. This proportional relationship becomes clear on stage with the initial image, in which the duo almost disappears in perspective behind the woman, who is as trustingly as cautiously present.
However, the decisive factor in this picture is not the body mass index, but its metaphorical content. For the two dedicated performers become motors of movement, muscles and prostheses, their feeling for movement and their dance are assimilated on and into Cohene's body without blocking its own energy. Seen purely externally, the duo remains an outboard motor, but intentionally, rhythmically and emotionally they merge into the moving still life of a triune unit - of an intimacy and compositional density that is reminiscent of Raffael.
Again and again there are also images of movement that seem to emerge from the aura of the triad: Gradinger and Schubot crashing against the lying Cohene - like a wave that wants to roll over its own crest. It is difficult to reproduce these images. Some of them are, to put it like Enquist, like real dreams, which are "clear and therefore completely incomprehensible".
Does so much physical closeness makes you scared? "No," says Aleesa Cohene three days before the performance, "everything feels just right, like after a day at the beach after you're totally out of it." That sets standards that must be met. Gradinger and Schubot swallow. But then it will be much more than a day on the beach. Serious, sad, tender, dignified, virtuoso, great and with music."

Astrid Kaminski, 9.02.2013, TAZ Berlin

Photo by Ben Jakon