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Schubot/

Gradinger

WHAT THEY ARE INSTEAD OF

2009

How can we coexist? To say I“ means turning the other into a foreign entity. Can intimacy embrace otherness to form a kind of common being? If our being extends beyond the limits of our skin can it reveal trace evidence of multiple ways of existing, symbiosis through belonging? How intimate can we be? Where does the surplus intimacy go? How much of our physical individuality is left at the end? How much debris of ego can I eliminate, and how much do I need? Angela Schubot and Jared Gradinger met nine years ago. In 'What they are instead of' the two of them search for unconditional togetherness.

with and by Jared Gradinger and Angela Schubot
Artistic advisor: Sigal Zouk and Lisa Densem


light design: Andreas Harder
 in collaboration with Pictoplasma

A production by Jared Gradinger and Angela Schubot


A coproduction with Les Grandes Traversées
 Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Schwelle7 
In collaboration with Pictoplasma 
 

Two bodies, glued together, spooning – standing, heavy breathing, wheezing and panting. For fifty minutes they pass through all thinkable poses and positions in their motion study “What They are Instead of”: standing, sitting, lying, kneeling, cowering on the floor, intertwined with each other, as if breathing with the same lungs. They seem to be moved by remote control or external forces, moving together, next to the other, on, over, under and through each other. Rubbing, beating and pressing their bodies together. Their heavy breathing evokes mostly sexual but also tender moments, latently violent and certainly comic; their togetherness provokes exhaustion. The body is obviously made of flesh and blood, sweat, tears and other secretions – it is not a product of culture but a natural phenomenon. Beauty, form, elegance: these criteria do not come into play here. Instead we see the antithesis of what dance normally aspires to: to lift off the ground, to raise above the earth, the dirt, the ugly reality of bodies, the animalistic.
While classic dance is an effort to transcend/forget it's physical origin, Schubot and Gradinger put their emphasis on exactly this physical component. Their exhaustion through art strives to expose the dancers’ physique. At the end, the physical exhaustion is also felt by the audience - and we realize the grandeur and power of the duet that manages to cause such an assimilation.
Tagesspiegel from 06.03.2010

The most impressive guest performance by Angela Schubot and Jared Gradinger from Berlin and their piece "What they are instead of" is pure tension and ecstasy: A double being that is rhythmically hyperventilating, constantly copulating in unbelievable positions, takes every common aesthetic and language of movement ad absurdum.
Badische Zeitung, 16.01.2010

fengran zhou0087.JPG
Photo by Fengran Zhou
WTAIO04 carol moraes 7x7.jpg
Photo by Caroline Moraes
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Photo by Florian Braun
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