reisende (travelers)

dance and photography: christina ciupke and gisela dilchert
 

turning around,
looking back
choosing with the eye,
waiting
crossing the room, letting the first choice pass,
moving further in thought,
perceiving a change,
pausing turning around to find oneself again mirrored in a pair of eyes -
 
i am thinking about the transition between thinking and speaking and the emptyness her nwhich is crossed by movement. the emptyness is actually full of possibilities, insecurities, associations and decisions. my intent is to explore this space with movement and image.
 
the piece begins with an empty room. the room, movement and image work together to portray idea and intent. movement of the body moves the image and releases the space from its overall form. the movement of the body and of the image moved by the body, overlap, dissolve and push against each other; creating tension between space, movement and gaze.
 

credits:

dance, space, choreography: christina ciupke
photografie: gisela dilchert
composition: johannes koeniger
light: tomski binsert
assistance: kerstin follenius
technical assistance: tim tucker
 
duration: 50 minutes
 

press
 
berliner morgenpost 29.05.99
christina ciupke face to face with the dance hall

the performance already begins in the foyer of the well-known berlin theatre, the theater am halleschen ufer. in the centre of the foyer, which is draped in black, hangs a bodice, from which one eye looks rigidly at the visitor. stripped to the waist, christina ciupke makes her way over to the bodice eye, her skin functioning as a projection surface, on which the eye oval swings back and forth with each step. as if desiring to become one with the eye, she slips into the bodice, allowing the picture to glide playfully over arms, hands, and muscles.
following this silent and breathtaking introduction, the performance continues in the auditorium. both audience and actress, "co-travellers" according to the title ("reisende"), set foot onto the path. an entire forest of eyes, single eyes, and double eyes, covers the stage as far as the eye can see. as noiselessly as a shadow, the dancer moves through the thicket, grasping the projections with her bare skin, becoming part of the space around her. sustained sounds (composition of johannes koeniger) support the trance-like atmosphere created by the shimmering play between moving and still pictures.
from its movement, "reisende" is a quiet piece, with uninterrupted flow. as the eye projections fade out, the search of the dancer intensifies. stylish illumination of the scene (tomski binsert) allows the body to move without a shadow. towards the end, only a single spotlight still lights up the surface, magically creating a narrow, rectangular strip of light on the dance floor. swaying, christina ciupke tries to focus her journey on the new situation. then, all of a sudden, she frees herself from the limitations of the space around her and goes away. for years it has consistently been christina ciupke's aim to investigate the relationship between movement and space. with "reisende" she has achieved a visible result.
volkmar draeger
 

"reisende" by christina ciupke/gisela dilchert, ua, theater am halleschen ufer in the series tanzzeit, 27. 5. 99 for ndr - tuz journal, 28. 5. 99

what is space? an empty black box. a compact mass filed with sound right down to the last crack. it is a strictly delimited area of possibilities, of encounters as well as movements, of light that can carve out segments, in short a place for making pictures, concepts and reminiscences visible or allowing them to vanish. already in the foyer it is dark. only one large illuminated eye stares fixedly into nothingness. it is projected onto a transparent dress. from loudspeakers, a soft rumble and rustle is to be heard, the street outside adds ist own muted sound. a young woman, stripped to the waist, pushes in between projector and dress. the eye now stares out from her back. or onto her back? softly she moves to the right and to the left, the eye scans her body, even disappears once under her shoulder, apparently changing ist expression. the body as a projection surface, at once bared and covered, looks and becomes visible through the view photographed by gisela dilchert, is potrayed equally as object and subject. with a light movement, christina ciupke slips into the dress of the installation and out of the beam of light, the eye no longer finds a surfaces and vanishes,without batting an eyelid. inside the auditorium it emerges again, duplicated, singly or combined as a gigantic pair of eyes, extending in layers far into the depths of stage. the body seems to become small ibetween them, and fragile, with ist long arms and legs extended, round head placed on top. it appears in the light of the eyes and vanishes in the neighbouring darkness. one eye fixes itself onto the back of the dancer- a gigantic, shimmering iris, suddenly round, no longer a surface, the picture has occupied the body, has for a moment itself become the body. with calm, extended movements the woman is drawn through this disconcerting landscape of light and shadow, accompanied by a soft, electronic vibration, which increases alarmingly and is enlarged by everyday sounds, rudiments of word and voice. christina ciupke's movement, for less than an hour, with eyes, light and sound, is done so consistently,with absolute precision. "i think about the threshold between thought and speech", she writes. "here a firther expanse of space opens up, which traverses movement. a further expanse of possibilities, insecurities, associations, decisions." this space sometimes appears to be quite narrow, then again yawning, inquiring, groping into the distance. in life. and on the stage in this small, quiet work, so compact and unresolved.
mechthild tschau