M | Я
Premiere: 18th October 2024 @ 8pm
Dates Live Performance: 19th October 2024 @ 8pm
Title: M | Я
Venue/Location: EinTanzHaus, Mannheim
Event description:
The utopian idea of peace, which has always been and continues to be an excessive demand could be reduced to the saying “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. We all want to live in peace and expect our state, our country and our leaders to help realize this dream. Yet, reality often proves to be more complex. Conflicts are not black and white!
This project reflects upon the impact of global conflicts on our personal social lives, our every day encounters with ourselves and others.
It explores the effects of education and propaganda, the loss of dialogue and the inner conflicts that arise due to our diverse national and cultural identities. What shapes us into who we become, what we believe in and how we perceive the world around us? Or are we conditioned by it? Is your world the same as mine?
Reducing global dissonance to the interpersonal means to explore the spectrum of physical and mental discordance that enables people to engage in acts of hostility. On one hand, the project tries to dismantle the roots of violence in the attempt to try and comprehend how nationalist thinking and conflicts based on specific ideologies arise, overruling any sense for humanity and differentiation. On the other hand, its ambition is to look into conflict resolutions and innate aspects of the human being that can be transferred to the collective.
The sustainability of this project is therefore of social nature and calls on me to take a closer look at myself and the “world” I live in, the borders I draw and the ones I cross, the people I see and the ones I judge.
Choreography: Darja Reznikova & Sade Mamedova
Performers: Maiia Selezneva & Gleb Bondarev
Sound: Sabio Janiak
Dramaturgy: Angela Wendt
Graphics: Petra Schreiner
Videographer: Tadas Almantas
This project is supported by the Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst, the Landesverband Freie Tanz- und Theaterschaffende Baden Württemberg (LaFT), Kulturamt Mannheim, and the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg.
Many Thanks to our cooperating partners, where the work has been developed: Schwindelfrei Festival Mannheim, EinTanzHaus Mannheim und Inter-Actions Studios Heidelberg.
Speeches & Verbal Content
Artists & Collaborators
Sade Mamedova
Co-Choreography
Sade Mamedova is a performer, choreographer and teacher based in Mannheim. After training as a dancer in Moscow, she toured internationally with the Riverdance Company for a year and completed her bachelor’s degree in classical dance at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts in 2013. From 2013, she was a member of the Regensburg Theatre and the Lucerne Theatre. She has been working as a freelancer since 2018 and has been recognised for her dance and choreography at renowned competitions and festivals around the world, including the International Choreography Competition in Copenhagen, the ICC in Hanover and dance festivals in Taiwan, Peru and Mexico. Sade teaches, leads workshops, creates and participates in various artistic projects in Germany and abroad.
https://www.sademamedova.com/
Maiia Selezneva
Dance Performance
Maya is a dancer, choreographer and teacher in the field of contemporary dance, movement and performing arts. She graduated from Vaganova Academy with an MA in Choreography and has a medical degree in Psychiatry from Northern State Medical University. She studies at the NOD/ICD, the International Research Programme and the Arkhangelsk University of Arts.
She is interested in movement and creation at the intersection of contemporary dance, urban dance styles and physical theatre to create multi-layered realities driven by a human transformation. As a freelance dancer, she has worked with choreographers and companies such as Hea Min Jung,
Alina Belyagina, James Finnemore, Naprimer Dance Company, Li Nekrasova, Tomislav
English, Mualem/De Phillips Project and Third Rail Project. In addition to her own choreographic projects and residencies (Tanzfabrik, Schloss Bröllin, YAA), she regularly works as a dance artist at the Nuova Officina della Danza, Zirka (Munich), Dance House Lefkosia, Ges-2, CN-D Pantin, Napa Gallery, Netzwerktanz, Vittoria Theatre, New Stage/Alexandrinsky Theatre, Escabo Stage and Erarta Museum.
Gleb Bondarev
Dance Perforamance
Gleb Bondarev is an artist whose main instruments are dance and video. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Romance and German Studies in Krasnodar, Russia. 2018-2023 he was part of the contemporary dance company ‘Zhest’. 2020-2023 he was part of the art community ‘Street Physics’. 2023-2024 he studied at the Media Faculty of Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Motion Pictures. Gleb is experienced in urban and contemporary dance and videography.
Sabio Janiak
Music/Sound/Therapy
Composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, one-man-band, educator, psycho-sensorialist and sound alchemist based in London. Sabio has been involved with music and art since an early age. In 2005 he received his Masters in Classical Percussion and in 2008 he studied Music Production at the London Centre of Contemporary Music (UK).
He has over 20 years of experience as a composer and session multi-instrumentalist. His experience of working with world famous artists has developed his unique ability to play over 100 instruments. This special ability allows him to be a very flexible musician, producer and composer.
Since 2008 Sabio has worked mainly as an accompanist, composer and performer in collaboration with dancers, artists, choreographers and dance companies in the UK and abroad. Some of the collaborations include Hofesh Shechter Company, Channel 4, Jesus Carmona Company, Anna Morales, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventure, Ella Mesma Dance Company, Hagit Yakira Dance, Richard Alston Dance Company and Nuno Silva among others.
Angela Wendt
Dramarturgy & Communications
Dr. Angela Wendt studied German, Media and Communication Studies and French and earned her doctorate in German Studies (Modern German Literature) at the University of Mannheim. She has been a lecturer there since 2000 and offers seminars focusing on theater and theater practice. At the National Theater Mannheim, she has worked on the International Schiller Days and the Mozart Summer, among others, and was responsible for the cooperation between the university and the National Theater.
Since 2015 she has been a freelance dramaturg in drama, and since 2018 also in dance. At Theater Felina-Areal Mannheim, she collaborates in drama with the Neues Ensemble and Rainer Escher, most recently on Wilhelm Reich’s “Rede an den Kleinen Mann” (2019), Alain Badiou’s “Ahmed der Philosoph” (2019), Anni Ernaux’s “Leben. Writing” (2020), Ferdinando Camon’s “The Horror of Therapists. The disease of man” (premiere 2021).
In dance, she collaborates with various choreographers including Stefano Giannetti: “The Power of Art” (2019), Amelia Eisen and Kirill Berezovski: “Project Warrior” (2019), Darja Reznikova and Katja Visschers: RAII 2020 Racism – Integration – Identity, a digital dance project as well as SoBo Productions most recent work “I Am…” (2020).
Together with Jan Roelof Wolthuis, she has been organizing various song projects since 2019, most recently “Traurigfroh, wie das Herz. Friedrich Hölderlin – Songs and Words” (2020) and Johannes Brahms: “Die schöne Magelone” (2021). With the cultural office Chamäleon she has started her own business in 2019: www.kultur-wendt.de
Impressions
by Lys Y. Seng
