Carthage Dance Festival, Tunis (TN) · 2019
Henda Chennaoui
An adaptation of FRE!HEIT with Henda Chennaoui – Tunisian journalist, women's rights activist and revolutionary.
Watch video ▶Photo: Malgven Gerbes
What is freedom? What does it demand of us? Is freedom even a task?
Drawing on moments, dialogues and personal experiences, David Brandstätter explores freedom in a dialogue between thought, space and body. Balancing on porcelain cups that he keeps moving through the room, he weaves movement, text, sound and installation into a picture of freedom as a path of constant questioning, of negotiation with oneself, and of setting the imagination free.
MAGAZINE DANSER
“The performance gives a feeling of pure risk, abstract, conceptual. It takes a long time, with a lot of patience, and allows to feel, through kinesthetic empathy, the tensions of the body, actually very active, that are involving the body of the dancer, negotiating one step, leaning on all fours, standing up, coming to a standstill.”
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Artistic statement
I am interested in what comes to light when one compares different perspectives, contexts or levels of impact of the word freedom: inner and outer, philosophical, spiritual, personal and social, felt and lived freedoms, but also freedom as an advertising promise and as an ideological concept.
My explorations of freedom reveal to me the complexity of our world, the limits of our language. Freedom requires us to be aware of the forces at work, including our own. It helps us to critically confront ideology and to recognise other options instead of A or B. However, promises and ideas of freedom can also subjugate, paralyse, divide, lead to wars, self-destruction and addiction. Freedom does something to us and we to it. Exploring and pursuing our own freedom is a balancing act for me.
So I do just that. I balance on porcelain, cups that I move around the room at the same time. They form landscapes, scatter in happy disorder, re-form into strict patterns. The suggestions that these different constellations give rise to correspond with the text, which also takes place on several levels. Spoken, projected and from the tape. I submit to the constraint of never touching the floor. A game. Freedom becomes a negotiation with one's own endurance. But also a homage to ordering and classifying and moving on. Behind the question of freedom is also the question of what we want to do with our lives.
For me, working on themes like freedom and courage is a key to hope, my basis for a creative engagement with the fragility of our present.
FRE!HEIT around the world
Each time FRE!HEIT travels outside Europe, David re-makes the piece together with an artist from the place where it is shown. Their ideas, remarks and questions about freedom enter the performance in dialogue with the original text of the piece.
Bunvat Festival, Karachi American Center (PK) · 2019
Darvesh
An adaptation of FRE!HEIT with the heavy metal band Darvesh, turning the piece into music theatre.
Watch video ▶San Francisco International Arts Festival (US) · 2022
Michelle Jaques
An adaptation of FRE!HEIT with Michelle Jaques – soul and gospel singer whose research traces the female heritage in the music born out of slavery.
Watch video ▶Team & credits
Team
PROJECT, CHOREOGRAPHY David Brandstätter | DRAMATURGIC ADVICE Malgven Gerbes, Howard Katz | TEXTS David Brandstätter in dialogue with Hatto Fischer, David Williams, Alexandros Mistriotis, Gabriele Wittman, Katja Kettner, Martin Clausen | NARRATOR Alexandros Mistriotis | MUSIC David Brandstätter, Ruth Wiesenfeld | LIGHTS Michael Kunitsch, Thomas Achtner | PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT Katja Kettner | PRESS Kathrin Schäfer | TOURING Alix Pellet, Clémence Rey | PRODUCTION s h i f t s - art in movement | COPRODUCTION fabrik Potsdam: Artists-in-residence | RESIDENCES Collectif Danse Rennes Métropole, Tanztendenz Munich, Giesinger Bahnhof Munich, CHU Rouen | SPONSOR Kahla Porzellan | WITH THE SUPPORT OF Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V., BLZT Performing Art Fonds, Kulturreferat München
Performances
2023 Opening of the exhibition Examples to Follow, Berlin (DE)
2022 San Francisco International Arts Festival (US) – with Michelle Jaques
2020 Festival Pharenheit, Le Phare – CCN du Havre Normandie (FR)
2019 Carthage Dance Festival, Tunis (TN) – with Henda Chennaoui
2019 Bunvat Festival, Karachi American Center (PK) – with the band Darvesh
2017–18 DSN – Dieppe Scène Nationale (FR)
2015–16 Avis de Grand Frais, CCN de Caen (FR) | Dock 11, Berlin (DE) | Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (FR) | Festival Made in Potsdam (DE)
2014 Muffatwerk München (DE) – premiere
2011–14 Théâtre de Hautepierre, Strasbourg (FR)
