"Schwarz weiß zeigen - Übungen für einen Choreographen"

Cesc Gelabert dances a Solo from Gerhard Bohner (1983/Reconstruction 2010). Introductory lecture to the artistic work of Gerhard Bohner | Nele Hertling

“I remember that in the work with dancers I was always able to get my ideas across with what I demonstrated, which he could then pass on in dance. In ‘Schwarz weiß zeigen’ I show the spectators what I normally show the dancers.” (Gerhard Bohner, quoted after Susanne Schlicher, 1987)
Schwarz weiß zeigen [Showing Black and White] is an artistic experiment into the essence and the boundaries of dance movement, a systematic research of space and body. In the confrontation with an environment dominated by geometrical laws, in 1983 in his later years of life and choreography, Gerhard Bohner created a choreography in which movement is primarily alluded to and sketched, the dialogue between choreographer and dancer is abstracted through objects. The life-size, wooden manikin, originally conceived as a prop, becomes an autonomous partner in the work, indicating the absence of the dancer and compelling analysis of one’s own dancing body.
After Im (Goldenen) Schnitt I and II [In the (Golden) Section I and II], Schwarz weiß zeigen became the third reconstruction of one of Gerhard Bohner’s works by the Spanish choreographer and dancer Cesc Gelabert. Here he draws on the original props in the archive of the Academy of Arts and a 1990 videodocumentary. With impressive presence and precision, he traces Bohner’s unique aesthetics, which alongside Johann Kresnik, Pina Bausch, Susanne Linke and Reinhild Hoffmann made the choreographer one of the key figures of German dance theatre and Schwarz weiß zeigen into a lesson in modern stagecraft.

CREDITS
CHOREOGRAPHY: Gerhard Bohner | RECONSTRUCTION AND DANCE
(2010): Cesc Gelabert | MUSIC: Georg Friedrich Händel, Glenn Branca
TECHNICAL DIRECTION: Norbert Stück
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COSTUME: Lydia Azzopardi
PRODUCTION / RESEARCH: Inge Zysk
STAGE PROPS: wooden manikin from the collection of Akademie der Künste, Berlin,
Kunstsammlung
PREMIERE OF THE ORIGINAL on Mai 15th 1983 at Akademie der Künste Berlin | A comissioned production by Tanzquartier Wien in coproduction with Akademie der Künste (Berlin) and the further partners tanzhaus NRW (Düsseldorf) and the Festival DANCE 2010 (Munich)
DURATION "Schwarz weiß zeigen": approx. 50 minutes

Introductory lecture by Nele Hertling: approx. 30 minutes