Here whilst we walk
In response to the initial invitation to participate in Lisbon in the project Encontros 05-06 (an initiative of Alkantara festival in collaboration with the Brazilian festival Panorama de Dança), in which there would be a partnership with another creator, from another country, another culture, two words marked our meeting alongside the first considerations: contact and displacement. The former one in direct relation with the meeting itself and the last one due to the fact of our actual need to displace ourselves for this project. Out of these two words, which would maybe come to serve as the bridge between us two, we became gradually interested in doing this contact in displacement, as a sort of continuous experimentation where the place itself would always be moving and moved. Reminding a bit the flâneur of the XIXth century, someone that wanders through the streets, observing each detail, without being noticed, without impressing himself onto the surrounding landscape, observer of the modern cities under a non-stop transformation, a witness of an amazing and subtle spectacle in front of his very eyes.
Aqui enquanto caminhamos / Here whilst we walk invests through a silent group walk on the possibilities of inhabiting the urban space through another politics of sharing and of perception. Taken in a walk through the invisible, but sensible, archictecture produced by the pedestrians and their living of the urban space, the audience is invited to imprint his/her own presence in real time and space, in a contact in displacement where the place shall always be moving and moved.
Creation, discussion and performance Gustavo Ciríaco and Andrea Sonnberger
Co-production Alkantara (Portugal) and Panorama de Dança (Brazil) festivals
Support Tanztendenz München e.V. and Goethe Institut Rio de Janeiro
Sponsored by European Cultural Foundation, Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München, Bayerischer Landesverband für zeitgenössischen Tanz aus Mitteln des Bayerischen Staatsministeriums für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst
Manager Marine Budin – El Climamolla
This project was created within the frame of Encontros 2005/06, an initiative of alkantara (Lisboa) with the
collaboration of Panorama de Dança (Rio de Janeiro).
We've been walking in:
Press
"Here whilst we walk" - a Walking Event
"Once, there was something quite simply called "a walk". One used to walk around, without a destination, in no hurry; observed what there was to see and listened to whatever there was to hear. Somehow this has gone out of style. One no longer walks for the fun of it, but to arrive at a destination. In their performance "Here whilst we walk", artist Andrea Sonnberger and her Brazilian colleague Gustavo Ciríaco demonstrate just how much we miss out on in doing so. The idea is appealingly simple: a group of six but no more than 20 go for a walk. Only two things are different from the way we´re used to. First, no-one speaks a word. Second, all participants are surrounded by a white band within which they move.
Thus the artists lead their group from the dyeing works in Claude-Lorrain-Strasse through Untergiesing, through streets and backyards.Essentially, that´s it already. If you think this is boring, you are wrong, though. It is astonishing what kind of reactions this performance provokes in passers-by. One lady wants to "help with money". However, when the group remains silent, she concludes that "they´re probably all nuts". It is encounters like this which are disconcerting, as well as the times when the artists briefly abandon their group. Involuntarily, one becomes a canvas for the phantasies of those who pass by. The band separates the group from its environment. All those within it now belong together, whether they like it or not. The combination of walking and silence makes one´s perception more acute, and presents familiar views from a new angle. And so a simple walk turns into an outing through a Munich barely anyone knows."
Anne Fritsch - Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich, Germany, September 2006.
