Bodies and Structure. Interventions

Arena / Rita McBride

Arena / Rita McBride

The „Arena“ (1997), consisting of a complex layer of plywood and Kevlar, is both sculpture and functional structure. Since its creation, more than 100 artists, musicians, curators and politicians have been guests at this meeting place.

 

2018-2019
Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany

2019-2020
Bauhaus Museum Dessau, Offene Bühne, Germany

On the occasion of „Arena“, presented in the Kunsthalle Mannheim by Rita McBride, Alexandra Waierstall goes to this place together with a male performer, with two or more female performers, and returns to it again and again. With her signature characterized by a high degree of sensitivity, Alexandra Waierstall processually opens up a landscape here in which nothing will ever be finished or completed. As in the solo „Sounding Silence“, which was performed at the „Arena“ in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf as part of the Time Based Academy in 2016, the performers and visitors share a space in silence.

Cyclical encounters between the performers and visitors, between them and the space, unfold here again and again in the morning, at noon or in the evening, on and next to the „Arena“. Vertical and horizontal connections between actors and observers, resonances, transitions, changes of perspective and transformations are experienced instantly from moment to moment, continuously changing and growing. In the interventions, these processes, which are not characterized by fixed points, beginnings or departures, and these situations, which are never entirely completed, are focused and, in the process, infinite perspectives on the relationship of man and space, body and structure, individual and collective, all the way to society and structure, are reflected choreographically in their complexity and poetics.

Photos: Museum Bauhaus Dessau, Offene Bühne (c) Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau / Photo: Espen Eichhöfer, 2019 / OSTKREUZ

Bodies and Structure


Interventions #01-09
June + August 2019, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany

Arena/Rita McBride. Bodies and Structure
September 2019 + February 2020, Bauhaus Museum Dessau, Germany

Duration: 60 min. or durational performance
People on tour: 12

Choreography, concept: Alexandra Waierstall; Artistic Collaboration: Rita McBride; Performance and collaboration Mannheim: Damien Fournier, Harry Koushos, Bandi Meszerics, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Karolina Szymura, Emmi Väisänen, Eftychia Stefanou; Performance and collaboration Dessau: Olivia Ancona, Damien Fournier, Scott Jennings, Georgios Kotsifakis, Harry Koushos, Bandi Meszerics, Luke Murphy, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Eftychia Stefanou, Karolina Szymura, Adonis Vais, Ying Yun Chen; Costumes: Alexandra Waierstall, Horst Weierstall; Collaboration costumes: Lucia Vonrhein; Mareike Nothdurft; Management: Judith Jaeger

Production: Alexandra Waierstall; Coproduction: tanzhaus nrw; Supported by: the Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Kunststiftung NRW; With support of: Kunsthalle Mannheim