Anna Konjetzky & Co

Über die Wut // TANZweb.org

Über die Wut // TANZweb.org

Dance Solo Festival Bonn 2023

Manifesto of indignation

www.tanzweb.org, 05.03.2023 // Author: Elisabeth Einecke-Klövekorn
“On Rage” by Anna Konjetzky at the Tanzsolofestival Bonn

There are countless reasons to be angry. Especially as a woman. Anger is a feeling that takes hold of the whole body: Teeth grinding, muscle tension, increase in pulse and adrenaline. But anger also makes you strong. The Belgian-born dancer Sahra Huby shows this with self-confident energy in the dance installation “Über die Wut” by Anna Konjetzky (choreography and stage), which premiered at the Münchner Kammerspiele in 2021. In 2022 she was nominated for it in the category Darsteller:in Tanz for the German Theater Award “Faust”. On March 4, this impressive performance could be experienced at the Bonn International Dance Solo Festival on the Brotfabrik stage.

“WUT” is written in large illuminated letters between the white paper panels hanging from the ceiling, which serve as a projection screen for images of outrage arousing grievances and for calls for protest. “Stop,” Huby calls into the microphone, which multiplies her voice. She sits down, stands up again, jumps up, staggers, rages, stomps, gasps, screams, strikes invisible opponents. The whole angry vocabulary of movement is deconstructed up to the masculinely connoted display of muscular biceps, proud chest drumming and snarling. The raised up clenched fist, the extended middle finger: many symbolic gestures of resistance are tried out. It calls up the witnesses of centuries of female rage from Medea and Joan of Arc to Clara Zetkin and Audre Lorde. Greta Thunberg’s “How dare you” is also heard.

Every now and then, the dancer almost seems to drown in the flood of video projections. The optical overkill, meanwhile, intensifies the feeling of impotent rage. All this is accompanied acoustically by the electronic music of Brendan Dougherty, which carries the performance along, sometimes very loud, but also full of sensitive sound moments. At times Huby parodies the aggressive gestures to the point of grotesque contortions and also dares to appear comical. At one point she clenches a sheet of paper into a lump, which she holds in front of her face like a mask and then pulls upwards as if it were a cloud, where a distorted mouth is projected onto it. But talking alone does not help against all the threats, injuries and injustices.

Anger, of course, also exhausts itself. Towards the end, the dancer gets rid of her gray overalls, opens her strict topknot and dances naked across the stage with a flowing mane. Quite lightly and as if freed from the frantic rush and tension. It is a call to self-determination. Anna Konjetzky’s great production sets against the clichés of the angry woman as a hysterical bitch, a female rage that aims at the concrete changeability of circumstances. This rage is not just an emotion, it is an energy that is downright electrifying. After 75 minutes, long enthusiastic applause from the sold-out theater hall. Afterwards, the team invited the audience to the mediation format “Physical Traces” and to explore their own energies of rage.

Über die Wut // Fränkische Nachrichten

Über die Wut // Fränkische Nachrichten

Tanz – Mit geballten Fäusten

Fränkische Nachrichten, 20.12.2021 // Author: Nora Abdel Rahman​
Tanz – Mit geballten Fäusten
Stück „Über die Wut“ beendet das Jahr im Eintanzhaus

„Stopp!“, schallt es aus dem Off, während sich die Performerin von ihrem Platz wegbewegen will. Sie hält inne, geht zurück in ihre Sitzposition und versucht es erneut. Doch wieder zwingt die kurze Anweisung sie zurück in die Ausgangsposition. Das geht so weiter, bis sich dieser Vorgang verselbstständigt und in eine andere Form übergeht. Auf der Soundspur verzerrt sich das „Stopp!“, dehnt sich aus, verdoppelt und verdreifacht sich zu einem ausufernden Klangexperiment. Während die Tänzerin einen ähnlichen Prozess durchläuft: Ihr Körper spannt sich immer stärker an, mit geballten Fäusten beginnt sie einen Tanz, der sie mehr und mehr einem Ausnahmezustand annähert.
Eine Recherche „Über die Wut“ ist der in München ansässigen Choreographin Anna Konjetzky mit ihrer aktuellen Tanzarbeit gelungen. Wut sei ein Zustand, schreibt sie in ihrem Tanzprospekt, „der aktuell sehr präsent ist und als Produkt einer besorgten und ängstlichen Politik und Gesellschaft großen Raum in unserer Realität einnimmt“.
Verletzbarkeit der Seele
Auf der in Weiß gehaltenen Bühne im Mannheimer Eintanzhaus entfaltet sich das Szenario „Über die Wut“ mit der unermüdlichen Performance von Sahra Huby auf der herausfordernden Musik von Brendan Dougherty und der raffiniert genutzten Bühnenausstattung. Bald setzt Huby ihr Konterfei in einen von der Decke hängenden leeren Rahmen und zeigt ihren vor Wut angespannten Kiefer, fletscht die Zähne oder sperrt den Mund weit auf zum Schrei; bald wird ihr Gesicht durch eine Filmprojektion ersetzt, die wütende prominente Konterfeis zeigt; bald leuchten in der Luft hängende Wut-Lettern auf, ausgelöst durch einen Sprung der Performerin auf einen Schalter am Boden; alles ist hier in die verschiedenen Ausprägungen der Wut getaucht. Als sich die Akteurin nackt auf der Bühne zeigt, wird der Wutrausch für Momente stillgelegt. Jetzt offenbart die Tänzerin die ganze Verletzbarkeit des Körpers und der Seele.

Über die Wut // danceinternational.org

Über die Wut // danceinternational.org

ABOUT ANGER

danceinternational.org, 14. Juni 2021 // Author: Jeannette Andersen
For her new piece, Über die Wut (About Anger), Anna Konjetzky chose a traditional stage — at the Münchner Kammerspiele —

The solo, danced by the fabulous freelance dancer Sahra Huby, was spellbinding. Huby’s register of anger spanned cartoon-like movements, repressed anger that distorted the body, anger that welled up from her toes and tried to escape through her mouth, aggressive typically masculine gestures and much more. Scenes of violent demonstrations, such as those for Black Lives Matter, and of refugees trying to climb the wall between Mexico and the United States, were projected upstage on white banners because, as Konjetzky explained in her artist talk, we are living in a world of anger.

Über die Wut // Abendzeitung

Über die Wut // Abendzeitung

Über die Wut

Abendzeitung, 18. Mai 2021 // Author: Vesna Mlakar

Sahra Huby, who as the congenial protagonist in Anna Konjetzky’s “Über die Wut” (Anger) is stealing the thunder from the once so delightfully exploding HB male, at some point also becomes loud and shrill in the situational portrayal of the uncontrollable emotion, like the storm of words and images that at times accompanies her. In fractions of a second, fear, suffering or despair make themselves known in this way.

Über die Wut // Tanznetz.de

Über die Wut // Tanznetz.de

ANGER MANAGEMENT – NO THANKS!

Tanznetz, 16.05.2021 // Author: Greta Haberer
For her latest performance “On Anger”, Anna Konjetzky has created a manifesto on female anger
Audre Lorde, Greta Thunberg, Simone de Beauvoir, Clara Zetkin, Laurie Penny, Sarah Ahmed, Angela Davis, Medea, Rosa Parks and Jeanne d’Arc – they are all present when Sahra Huby gives free rein to her anger on stage.

Audre Lorde, Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Simone de Beauvoir, Clara Zetkin, Laurie Penny, Sarah Ahmed, Angela Davis, Medea, Margarete Stokowski, Rosa Parks and Jeanne d’Arc – they are all present when Sahra Huby gives free rein to her anger on stage. Their speeches linger in the air, as a cloud of paper onto which a speaking mouth is projected. “How dare you?” Greta Thunberg’s voice inquires.

“On Anger” is a tribute and an appeal. An encouragement and a demand to be angry and become even angrier – especially as a woman. Anna Konjetzky’s dance installation premieres at the DANCE Festival in Munich in the Kammerspiele and shows that it is okay to be angry. It is a solo performance with the dancer Sahra Huby, who, using her voice and her body, shapes and formulates her anger. But she is not only expressing her own rage, which seems to have been accumulating for quite some time, but also the fury of many women around the world, not just nowadays, but throughout all of time.

She contracts her muscles, contorts her face, bares her teeth and opens her eyes wide. She pants and gasps, thrashes around and punches the air. She continually plays around with movements that our society associates with being masculine: she beats her chest with her fists and shows off her biceps. Even though everything is a bit exaggerated, it still isn’t a caricature. She is not imitating men, not at all, she is able to do it all just like them. She is just as strong and can be just as angry. And she has every reason to be. After flinging her body across the stage, she stands at the microphone and tells us why and what and who she is angry with. There is a lot of identification potential.

On the stage, strips of white paper hang lengthwise from the ceiling. They are evocative of posters or banners and are used as a projection surface. The word WUT (anger) flickers between them in LED letters. Images of demonstrations are shown where these kind of banners and signs are being held up: Black Lives Matter, Enough is enough, Stop Killing Us! In addition, there are scenes of escape, deforestation, old white men in suits shaking hands, people climbing over the wall on the border between Mexico and the United States – there are enough reasons to be angry. But why aren’t we? This is the question the audience is continuously confronted with.

Our culture is full of angry individuals. They are projected onto a framed screen that also hangs down from the ceiling. You can only see the dancer’s body, her face is replaced by aggressive cartoon characters or a screaming Jack Nicholson and Frances McDormand in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, one of the most magnificent angry female characters of recent times. Sahra Huby’s body beneath the projections is distorted in poses of frustration and rage. Her feet stamp on the ground, her fists hurtle through the air. She is literally raging with anger. All of this is accompanied by Brendan Dougherty’s electronic music, which perfectly underlines what is happening on stage throughout the evening. It is hectic and loaded, electrifying at times. It also makes the audience’s adrenaline rise.

Indeed, anger is exhausting. Sahra Huby demonstrates that, as well. But what is much more important, proving that all of the energy invested in one’s anger is really worth it, is the liberation that can be felt afterwards. When it doesn’t matter that society demands women not to be angry and to endure oppression with a smile. In the end, the dancer virtually flies across the stage. Her movements are smoother, livelier and lighter. The clenched muscle tension and facial contortions from the beginning have disappeared. Her hair is no longer tied in a tight braid but falls loosely as she whips her head around. She has also taken off her overalls and is now naked. A further act of liberation and at the same time a sign of self-determination.

Finally, she reaches for the microphone again. She is not alone, she says. She is here alongside all of the angry women in history. She calls out their names and they begin to fill the space in a continuous loop. As a woman you are not alone with your anger. And it’s important to be angry. Anna Konjektzky’s performance shows with full force the kind of power it unleashes. She destroys the image of the hysterical and bitchy female and in her place she creates a strong, purposeful and angry woman. She shows that anger is not masculine. Up to this point, anger has been an emotion that is not associated with women. This has to change. Female anger is needed in order to make a difference and we need much more of it.