Anna Konjetzky & Co

songs of absence // Reviews

songs of absence // Reviews

Anna Konjetzky «Songs of Absence»

Salzburg

der-theaterverlag.de // March 2024 // Author: Carmen Kovacs

Not every loud work is a good work – but this one is. Anna Konjetzky has something to say that must not disappear. In Munich, she and her team have been a ground-breaking institution for many years, actively seeking, facilitating and shaping local and international connections and networking within the dance scene. Songs of Absence”, which premiered at the Munich theater festival “spielart”, can be understood in the context of this exchange, as part of a queer-feminist, socio-politically anchored artistic practice.

While the focus is urgently on making voids visible, on the forgotten and repressed, this content is presented in a charming album structure. Two stand-up microphones are positioned in a semicircle of projection screens, indicating from the outset that there is a lot to say. And indeed, the text, the pronouncing and addressing, the swallowing, mutating and virtuoso morphing of words and sentences into one another play a key role. In an almost symbiotic relationship with the soundtrack (Sergej Maingardt), the phenomenal cast of seven performers leads us through embodied attitudes, personal address, ecstatic speech, rap, slogans, poetry. Some moments of expressing become a difficult birth, the movement a side effect of the meaning.

How all this looks in movement language seems secondary in many moments anyway – and yet the forms of expression are so concrete and specific that the experienced choreographic directive behind them can be clearly felt. Sometimes they are static images, beautiful complications in which the bodies slip in and out of each other, supporting and holding each other. And sometimes they are liberated dance phrases that conjure up the affirmative power of movement. At one moment you see the group obsessively working on itself. And in the next, an electric guitar being worked on by two performers with objects and made to sound in wild ways.

We experience gestures of negation, which in the collective performance become affirmative gestures of togetherness, a sisterly embrace. We watch an ensemble that has its resources under control and understands its self-empowered approach right down to the design of the light. The craftsmanship and dramaturgy are so good that at times you forget what it is actually about. Fortunately, the finale is a caring slap in the face that tells you whether you’re still there.

On the bright side of the shake

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 06.11.2023 // Authors: Yvonne Poppek/Egbert Tholl

In beautiful contrast, there is the world premiere of “songs of absence” by Munich choreographer Anna Konjetzky, conceived like an album, interspersed with strong images, cleverly positioned in a feminist way.

The art of playing

Abendzeitung München, 02.11.2023 // Author: Vesna Mlakar

Songs of absence” is full of lyrics (…) Powerful words, peppered with thoughts that continue to have an effect on her – inwardly – violently moving performance. (…) Emotionally, the whole thing escalates into an increasingly agitated enumeration that culminates in a hiccup of vowels that are merely uttered one by one. Again and again, words get stuck in the throats of the seven dancers. (…)
Anna Konjetzky is well versed in the art of playing with content and form. But the choreographer, who has been regularly staging dance pieces characterized by a socio-political debate in Munich and around the world for 18 years now, is never merely concerned with the formal. Her almost insatiable desire to impulsively and thematically capture an audience seems to be too great. And this is exactly what Konjetzky succeeds in doing thanks to her famous protagonists Sahra Huby, Amie Jammeh, Sotiria Koutsopetrou, Jin Lee, Quindell Orton, Martha Pasakopoulou and Hannah Schillinger.

WE ARE HERE – Saarländisches Staatstheater

WE ARE HERE – Saarländisches Staatstheater

World Premiere 30.5.2019, Saarländisches Staatstheater

WE ARE HERE

A Dance piece by Anna Konjetzky

In her new piece, a world premiere for the Saarland Staatsballet, Anna Konjetzky deals with the concept and feeling of imminent danger. A game of perception, an interplay of music and dance and how they shift against each other – and it is a game of movement and motionlessness. It is also about getting closer, which is perceived as a danger.

Team

Choreography: Anna Konjetzky // Music: Sergej Maingardt // Stage: Andrey von Schlippe // Costumes: Charlotte Pistorius // With the Saarländischen Staatsballett

Partners & Support

Press

Upcoming Events

No event found!

Past Events

July 2021
December 2019
November 2019
June 2019
May 2019
No event found!
Load More

UNSTABLE – Staatstheater Braunschweig

UNSTABLE – Staatstheater Braunschweig

World Premiere 10.2.2019, Staatstheater Braunschweig

UNSTABLE

a dance theatre piece by Anna Konjetzky

The starting point for Anne Konjetzky’s dance theatre piece UNSTABLE is the question of how we deal with insecurity, but also what groundlessness means to us and what opportunity can lie in instability. Developed in collaboration with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Braunschweig, the choreographer deals with the state of imbalance: What does it feel like when you have lost your balance – or is it not yourself at all, but the world around you that has gone out of balance?

Team

Choreography: Anna Konjetzky // Stage: Hannes Hartmann, Leonie Mohr // Music: Sergej Maingardt // Dramaturgy: Stefanie Fischer // Audience Development: Julia Honer // With: Alice Baccile, Brendon Feeney, Joshua Haines, Ursina Mathéus, Brigitte Uray

Partners & Support

Press

Upcoming Events

No event found!

Past Events

March 2019
February 2019
No event found!
Load More