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.

The very moment

The very moment

World Premiere 20.12.2018, Kammerspiele München

The very moment

A dance piece by Anna Konjetzky

The new dance piece by Munich choreographer Anna Konjetzky stages fragile and inefficient bodies and thematises our social interaction with them. As if in a game, five dancers compete against each other. They test their limits, work against muscle cramps, struggle with losing their balance, get out of step, fall, give up and start again. Inspired by youtube videos depicting stumbling drunks and weakened marathon runners, the ensemble takes the subject of falling out of context, while analysing and commenting on ist own physical progress.

The piece is in english with German subtitels (or other language).

Team

Choreography: Anna Konjetzky // Dance: Sahra Huby, Sooyeon Kim, Maxwell McCarthy, Quindell Orton, Robin Rohrmann // Music: Brendan Dougherty // Video: René Liebert // Light: Wolfgang Eibert // Dramaturgy: Sarah Israel // Production: Rat&Tat Kulturbüro

Partners & Support

A production by Anna Konjetzky in co-production with the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Argekultur Salzburg. With the support of the cultural Department of the city of Munich. With backing from the BLZT ( Bavarian National Association for Contemporary Dance) from funds of the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Cultural Affaires, Science and the Arts, and ther Performing Arts Foundation e.V. , the Muffathalle Munich, and by Tanztendenz Munich e.V.

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Past Events

February 2020
January 2020
August 2019
June 2019
December 2018
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MOVE MORE MORPH IT!

MOVE MORE MORPH IT!

World premiere 07.10.2018, Kösk Munich

MOVE MORE MORPH IT!

Dance Performance

Who, how and what can I be? This question is being asked by Munich choreographer Anna Konjetzky in her new piece. A body produces its own soundtrack for a journey across various identities, self-conceptions and fantastical characters. The sounds evolvingreveal the movement in a different light and make the situations change unexpectedly. The images, moods, and super powers, drawn from individual or collective memory, are playfully layered and recombined. Through big effects and subtle notes, perception is fooled and the curiosity towards a creative way of handling attributions is triggered.

A 30-minute dance performance for theatres, galleries, foyers, schools and many other spaces, with the possibility of subsequent discussions, mini or maxi workshops on dance and music (e.g. live scoring of movement, foley artist).

Team

Choreography: Anna Konjetzky // Dance: Sahra Huby // Music: Sergej Maingardt

Partners & Support

A production of explore dance– Network dance for young audience, a project of fabrik Potsdam, Fokus Tanz / Tanz und Schule e.V. München and K3 | Tanzplan Hamburg organized by fabrik moves gUG. It is funded by TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund, supported by the commissioner for culture and media of the federal government, the free and hanseatic city of Hamburg, the department of arts and culture of the city of Munich and the Bavarian state association for contemporary dance financed by the Bavarian ministry for arts and education, as well as the city of Potsdam and the ministry for science, research and culture of the federal state of Brandenburg.

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April 2024
May 2024
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Past Events

May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
October 2022
April 2022
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about a session

about a session

World Premiere 25.1.2018, Kammerspiele München

about a session

a dance piece by Anna Konjetzky

The term session means a meeting that is limited in time. Borders and rules are established, stretched or repealed in order to make new experiences and knowledge possible. The new piece by the choreographer Anna Konjetzky, who resides in Munich, addresses the about – and sessions as such. Being distant and being involved are not a contradiction. ABOUT A SESSION melds sensual experience and analysis, and is thus an act of contemplation about and with bodies. Can reflecting on or discussing arousal actually arouse? Can it stimulate the audience’s sexual fantasies? In the audience’s minds, a number of images of desire overlap in the contradiction or the doubling of word and image. In thinking about and with the body, analysis and sensual experience intertwine.

ABOUT A SESSION takes place in English.

Team

Choreography: Anna Konjetzky // Dance: Sahra Huby, Quindell Orton, Maxwell McCarthy, Victor Perez Armero // Video: René Liebert // Scene: Hannes Hartmann und Leonie Mohr // Dramaturgy: Bastian Zimmermann // Music: Sergej Maingardt // Project Coordination: Sabine Klötzer – SISK

Partners & Support

This project is a coproduction with the Münchner Kammerspiele and is made possible by the Kulturreferat der Stadt München, the Bayerische Landesverband für zeitgenössischen Tanz (BLZT) with funds from the Bayerische Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultur, Wissenschaft und Kunst, the Bezirk Oberbayern, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe as well as the Goethe Institut St. Petersburg.

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Past Events

13.11.2019 Grotowski institute

TESTLAUF-durational

TESTLAUF-durational

Uraufführung 28.5.2018, DAAD festival Bratislava

TESTLAUF-durational

a brainstorming-playground

The set of TESTLAUF is a space, that invites people to hang out, lie down, chat, meet, dance, play, listen to music, etc…..and have a drink together.
After having done this work as a performance during SPIELART 2015, we continued questioning and developing it, and created a second, far more interesting version, as an ongoing installation: a brainstorming-playground: In this set we will propose and let go. Think and explore together, around how we use the space together, (this space concretely and this space as a model of an urban setting) how we create communities, how we share…. The space is open the whole day shifting from guided to not guided momentums.

Team

Partners & Support

Funded by the Department of Culture of the City of Munich, the Goethe Institut, Fonds Dastellende Künste e.V. and the Bayerischen Landesverband für zeitgenössischen Tanz (BLZT). Woth support of the Kreissparkasse München Starnberg Ebersberg, the Muffatwerk GmbH, den Eisbachstudios and the music house Hieber Lindberg.

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Upcoming Events

Past Events

28. – 30.5.2018 DAAD festival Bratislava