Den kreisrunden Todengwalzer tanzen: the book

20070502

the book

Den kreisrunden Todengwalzer tanzen

Peter lang Verlag, Vienna, Reihe Persephone 5, Technikkritik & Ästhetik
short story and portfolio by Ines Birkhan

Can the reenactment of the Ramayana take place in a gender deprived society (where women can be confused with gazelles) ? What is the role then of the Professor, involved in his quest to a lost fertility as the world has become a toxic waste which ground is too foul to allow human foot to be set on it, and bares only the eerie todeng plants? And is all this happening on or off stage, when dance and choir seem to be part of normal life ?

In den kreisrunden Todengwalzer tanzen, Ines Birkhan builds a complex and personal universe, based – but not only – on her experience as a dance performer, and interrogations on relations between nature and culture…

Accompanied by essays by Hans-Dieter Klein, Evelin Klein & Ingvild Birkhan.

Ines Birkhan

Born in Vienna, living in Berlin since 2005, she studied fine arts and sculpture at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna, then dance and choreography at the SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam. Since then she continuously works on her own performances and film/video, such as Alpiner Exorzismus (2003/2004), Butterflies, Sex and Hypochondria (2005), Mythen für die Zukunft (2005/2006), den kreisrunden Todengwalzer tanzen (2006/2007). She danced with/for Kyung-sun Baek, Julien Bruneau, Bertram Dhellemmes, Barbara Gene, Nora Heilman, Barbara Kraus, Kurt Koegel, Benoit Lachambre, Frans Poelstra, Michael Schumacher, Robert Steijn, Frank van den Ven, Lito Walkey and others. Since 2004 she is co-director of the company Real Dance Super Sentai. Since a few years she is also producing work as an author and wrote several short stories and a novel.

Bertram Dhellemmes

Lives and works in Berlin. First works as a visual artist, a video maker and a musician (two CDs released on the label Kinpatsu, another one on Even Stilte), then combines these different disciplines to transmedia practice, such as cinema (Alpiner Exorzimus with Ines Bikhan, 2004, short movie Partie 0.1, 1998) and transmedia performances (Oudapo, L.I.S.I.M., Ubik, N log h…). From his performer involvement, studies and works since 1996 with long term dancers of Min Tanaka's butoh company Maijuku, particularly with Christine Quoiraud and Body Weather Amsterdam (Frank van de Ven, Katerina Bakatsaki), and with Min Tanaka himself, a. o. during a stay in Japan in 1999, while also taking classes of Akira Kasai and Kazuo Ohno. His last years are mainly dedicated to dance — a. o. creating and directing the company Real Dance Super Sentai for the creation of Of human being as an animal degenerated by intelligence in 2003 — most of the time relating with music, video, new media and spatial devices, in an on-going transmedia research. Also art and cinema critic and theoretician.