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Choreographer Mette Ingvartsen at Freie Universität

Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen is Valeska Gert Visiting Professor during 2017 spring/summer semester / Opening event on April 24, 2017

№ 041/2017 from Mar 03, 2017

The Danish dancer and choreographer Mette Ingvartsen will be the Valeska Gert Visiting Professor at Freie Universität Berlin during the 2017 spring/summer semester. On April 24 at the Akademie der Künste, in a talk with Gabriele Brandstetter from Freie Universität and Clémentine Deliss from the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin, Ingvartsen will provide insights into her artistic work and development. She will also outline her plans for working with students of dance studies. The conversation will be conducted in English. The final presentation of the project will take place as a durational performance lasting several hours on June 30, 2017 at the Institute of Theater Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Both events are open to the public, and admission is free.

During the spring/summer semester Mette Ingvartsen will be working with students in the master's degree program in dance studies at Freie Universität Berlin on the Viscous Environments Project. "Along with the students I would like to think about how a so-called durational environment, a mixture of installation and durational performance, can be created from human bodies and nonhuman performers," says Ingvartsen. That would bring together two of her research strands of the past years: on the one hand, how objects, topics, and materials can become the means to a performative expression, and on the other hand, how sexuality can be understood less as a private topic, and more as a social and political one.

Mette Ingvartsen studied dance and choreography at the P.A.R.T.S School in Brussels. Her first performance Manual Focus took place in 2003. Since then, she has initiated various research projects and developed numerous performances, including 50/50 (2004), to come (2005), Why We Love Action (2006), It’s in the Air (2008), GIANT CITY (2009), and All the way out there... (2011). Questions of kinesthesia, perception, affect, and sensation have been crucial to most of her work. Recently her interest has turned toward thinking about choreography as an extended practice. Starting with evaporated landscapes in 2009, a performance for foam, fog, light, and sound, this interest led to a series of works in which Ingvartsen extend choreography into non-human materials. According to the website of HAU – Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, where the performance was shown in February, "Volatile materials such as light, sound, bubbles, and foam are used in the performance to create various types of landscapes. Some of these artificial landscapes remind us of nature as we know it from an earlier time, and others make us think of futuristic fantasies." Between 2017 and 2022 she will be part of the artistic team at the Volksbühne theater in Berlin, under the direction of Chris Dercon.

The Valeska Gert Visiting Professorship is sponsored jointly by Freie Universität, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Akademie der Künste.

Press Image

The dancer and choreographer Mette Ingvartsen
Credit: Danny Willems

The photo may be downloaded and used by media representatives free of charge, when reporting in the context of this press release and provided due credit is given to the photographer.

Time and Location

  • Opening event:
    Monday, April 24, 2017, 7 p.m.
    Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, Clubraum, 10557 Berlin (S Bellevue, U Hansaplatz, Bus 106). 
  • Final event:
    Friday, June 30, 2017, Durational Performance; the doors will be open between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.
    Institute of Theater Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Grunewaldstr. 35, DanceLab, 12165 Berlin.

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