INSTANT CHOREOGRAPHY LAB

with Heidi Weiss, Manuel Meza & Damian Gmür

21.08. – 25.08.2023, 14:00–17:30

Workshop fee:
Marameo members: 20% discount on all workshops (early bird & regular fee!)
Non-members: 130€

Level Dancers

Bewerbung mit kurzem Lebenslauf an workshops[at]marameo.de

Workshopbeschreibung

A closed group of dancers is working together with 3 choreographers/dancemakers for one week. Each day will start with a 60-minute warm-up class by one of the 3 choreographers with the entire group. After that the group will split and each choreographer will work in three different spaces with some dancers of the group in either solo, duo or group constellations. Chance will decide every day about who is working with whom, we’re rolling the dice. The last half an hour of the day will be a space for sharing and/ or feedback.

The aim, concept and idea of this week are to create a safe space for trying out and sharing choreographic ideas, work methods and new approaches. Dancers have the chance to grow artistically by getting to know and experience different work styles and methods, focusing on the ability to quickly adapt to working with different choreographers. In the center of this lab stands the aspect of sharing – work, flow, methods, trying out, creating, creativity, energy.

Über Heidi Weiss

Heidi Weiss received her BFA in modern dance from the University of the Arts in 1992. She choreographed and performed with Group Motion, a Philadelphia-based Company, from 1992-96. In 1997, she moved to Germany, and together with Jennifer Mann, founded the Zen in the Basement Company (now Weiss/Mann Productions). Their numerous works have been presented in theatres and festivals in the EU and abroad. Heidi has been teaching various modern techniques for many years. Together with Jennifer Mann, she developed the Weiss-Mann technique*, which she continues to teach in workshops and at universities. Heidi was a Professor at Palucca Schule Dresden from 2004-07. She has been a guest artist in residence at Virginia Commonwealth University (USA). In addition, she has been a guest at Duncan Conservatory in Prague, London Contemporary (The Place) in London, SEAD in Salzburg and at Danceworx in New Delhi, India. She was a guest foreign professor at the National University of Arts in Seoul, Korea, and a guest professor for one semester at Folkwang University in Essen, Germany. Heidi is a faculty member for the Paris abroad program through the University South Florida. She has also given training to many companies such as Sasha Waltz, DV8 and Rambert.

We will focus in this choreography lab on the use of stream of conscious writing, improvisation, and motif exploration to generate material. We will work on movement development with the element of repetition, as well as construction/ deconstruction, to further intensify emotion and meaning in movement. Delving into individual explorations, as well as combining our movement motifs with other bodies to discover creative pathways in partnering is also part of this research. Compositional structures play an important role, as the dancers use space as a constructing device. Puzzling motifs and movement phrases is another tool which will be introduced as a method of composition. – Heidi Weiss

Über Manuel Meza

Manuel Meza is a freelance dancer, choreographer, and teacher currently based in Berlin. Born and raised in Southern California, Manuel holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts and a Master of Arts degree in Choreography and Performance from the Folkwang Universität der Künste. In 2022 they were research grant recipients from the #Takeheart rechercheförderung FondsDaku/NeuStartKultur with their projects: Migrating…Queerness and My Brown Dancing Body, and Because I Have Something to Say; An Exploration into the Queer Voice. Manuel Meza is the producer and organizer of Against the Grain, a new dance festival initiative that offers performance space for POC, Queer, under-represented, and body-positive choreographers and performers from the local Berlin dance community.

My choreographic language attempts to discover and capture the poetic sensations within the body; embracing the natural sequences of the human anatomy and combining these pathways with emotionally and energetically charged dynamics. My movement language draws upon the lineage of TanzTheater with storytelling taking a vital position in the working process and development of creation. The creative process utilizes imagery, text, poetry, sensations, and intuition to explore and discover a unique movement language. – Manuel Meza

Über Damian Gmür

Following soon.