Choreography/Performance/Sound and Set design: Philipp Enders
Mentors: Martin Nachbar, Jan Burkhardt
Many thanks to: all my friends, who contributed to the creation by coming to the studio to watch, discuss and feedback and/or by participating in the ‘constellation practice’ for the second part.

This work is a study in two parts, investigating on the sensation and materiality of timber. Also, it is an attempt to create a solo that isn’t a solo.

Part 1 –
“Yesterday I had the first rehearsal to my solo ‘Balken’. My attempt is to work with the sensation of warm wood. Wood that contains the warmth of the sun for instance, the sensation of being in an attic in summer; the particular sound of cracking wood – not because it is burning, but because it moves, because it expands and contracts, because it adjusts to its surroundings: to the temperature, to the atmosphere, to the tensions between the different beams carrying and supporting each other. It makes me excited to work on these quite concrete ideas of sensation and perception, yet it’s vague, because how to create it? Well, that is to be found out. And finally, a Balken is a line, too.”
– Philipp, in an email to a friend.

Part 2 –
“They were no quiet in the past. They can contain a lot sound, they were a lot of sound.”
“This space can contain a lot of us. I can imagine that we are a lot of people inside of it. And I can imagine this space without anyone of us living a long time empty – without being boring or bored.”
– Sonia Garcia and Nathan Freyermuth, during a conversation in the ‘constellation practice’.

 

Premiere: 24th of April 2014 at Uferstudios Berlin,
in the frame of ‘IN ZUCHT Festival 2014’

video stills.