Before the premiere streaming of the new short film Wupper-topia Gala Moody and Michael Carter chat with under construction festival Programmer Marc Wagenbach about the latest project Wupper-topia Online Youth Symposium.
Cie.OFEN has officially started the Youth Symposium with 2 schools in Wuppertal: Berufskolleg Kohlstr. and Gesamtschule Langerfeld.
The collaboration will culminate in the showing of a short film on the 26th of November as part of the Under Construction Festival – Pina Bausch Center.
Young people from Wuppertal tell us what’s important for them in the world now, how they see the future and what they will need to get there.
A Cie.OFEN project during the (now)digital Under Construction festival November 2020 in collaboration with young people from Wuppertal, the City of Wuppertal, Pina Bausch Center, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and the Pina Bausch Foundation.
Follow the process here
Excerpt from longer article in the Westdeustche Zeitung (translated from German)
It seethes behind the facade of the human being, it screams, rages, cries and laughs. It forces its way out, even though this is precisely what the directorial team is trying to prevent. By commanding the four figures (Bénédicte Billiet, Tsai-Wei Tien, Brenna O’Mara and Julie Shanahan) in their shapeless costumes. They chastise them and then ask if they are comfortable. Which is visibly not the case, oppressive and amusing at the same time. Cie.OFEN (Gala Moody and Michael Carter) see their choreographing as social practice. “New People 3.0” was born out of the utopian desire to work together in dance in a sustainable and holistic way; the experiment failed. The audience likes it.
– By Monika Werner-Staude
https://www.wz.de/nrw/wuppertal/kultur/es-brodelt-hinter-der-fassade-der-menschen_aid-47547327
Watch the interview of Gala and Michael talking about their process for New People with Marc Wagenbach, : HERE
They’ve built a golden tent. We can all meet there and have a common experience. It is a place that protects us from the world out there, it´s warm and cosy. It even gives you the illusion of being inside an ufo on another planet. Based on a fictional image of aliens looking for a better life, they created utopian visions of collaborating and working together.
Their work deals with social systems and seeing their choreographic practice as a social one. This is also reflected in their way of using the camera as they do it in a very respectful way, protecting the well being of the collaborators and showing an honest perspective on the topics in space: frustration, (dis)empowerment, disappointment – feelings and topics that all of them came across during their dance career. All of this was listened to and used as material for the creative process.
Moody’s and Carter’s work is all about the creative process itself, not so much about the product in the end. That is also how they understand their role as film makers and directors. I would even say that they are more observing, joining, accompanying than directing. Their interest is grounded in the transparency of an artistic process, having an honest gaze on the people who are part of it, with all their thoughts and struggles, wishes and ideas.
Film as a medium can be very intimate and is used as a tool to dive into moments and worlds you wouldn’t be able to enter otherwise. In a sensitive way they are following movement and atmospheres in space, having a rather intuitive approach on filming than a technically professional one. The focus should be on their work and not so much on a high quality video.
What I find special in their video installation is, that often the dancers work under the choreographer, finding themselves in a position of fitting in frames and supporting the choreographers idea. But in this work the dancers, the humans and their processes are elevated and given space to choose where to go and what to initiate. Both the good and the bad experiences, the highlights and difficulties are seen as relevant. At the same time it is not about reproducing their archives, reliving the experiences they made. It is about being aware of them and then daring to alienate from them, finding new ways of reacting to impulses, following new paths while encountering the unknown.
It is brave, I feel. One of my personal highlights of the festival and so important to be shown. The dance is not visible but the taste of it is all around. Free and true, a multi-layered expression, heavy and light. It’s a poetic and political statement that provides an insight into a creative process based on respect and non-hierarchical collaboration.