Kirsi Monni's Montreal lecture

"In Ula Sickle's work Solid Gold, we don’t see an entertaining black guy dancing to the music. Instead we hear his breath and feel his footsteps, which dance around the cultural and colonial history of black Africans. The intense presence of the dancer prohibits the audiences’ immersion in an entertaining flow of dancing, thus making visible the dance as a consciously choreographed act, a collection of socio-cultural gestures indicating the economic and political ideologies that lie underneath. From this work I read references to social dancing as well as to the entertainment industry, to undocumented personal histories as well as to collective histories of colonialism and the African Diaspora. What touches me here is the simplicity of the presentation, which allows me to closely perceive the dancing as an embodied thinking of one’s cultural and political heritage. "

Kirsi Monni from "What Kinds of Ideas Are Guiding Choreographic Work? - conceptualising choreography since 1960s"

The full article can be downloaded here :
(highly recommended!)
www.tangente.qc.ca

Solid Gold: A review @ Indyish.com

by Sylvian Verstricht

"No fanfare at Tangente this week. Fuck being submerged in a dark room, fuck seductive melodious music, fuck the ceremony that is usually the dance show. All that’s left of it is for us to walk in the room and sit in a chair, waiting for something to happen. The bright stage lights are already on and they don’t go down before Dinozord (dancer Patrick Mbungu) walks over to centre stage from the audience. No big costume either: a grey t-shirt, exercise pants, and sneakers.

Appropriate for the second week (of three) of Tangente’s Idea-Based Dances program, inspired by two movements with similar roots. The first emerged during the 60s with the Judson Dance Theater in New York City, which marked the beginnings of post-modern dance. Their source of inspiration: conceptual art. The second arose in France in the mid-90s with a new generation of choreographers that abandoned movement to integrate other art forms into their practice, thereby creating “non-dance.”

But Dinozord definitely dances in Ula Sickle’s Solid Gold. In fact, he covers the entire spectrum of dance from the African diaspora, from its roots to street dance styles performed in Congo today, passing through 20s Harlem, Broadway, the New York street dance scene of the 70s and 80s, and the more recent styles coming out of Los Angeles, like Krump. All of this in 30 minutes.

What makes this dance history lesson that much more compelling, however, is Sickle’s sound choice: no pop music. In fact, no music at all, in the strictest sense of the term. Again, very much in keeping with the practices of the Judson Dance Theater. Instead, what we get is the amplified sound from four microphones taped to the floor all around the stage, and (as we discover later) one right underneath Dinozord’s nostrils. His breath first sounds like a pen scribbling on a piece of paper. It is his, yet disembodied, marking the presence of two entities onstage: the physical and the electronic bodies.

We also hear his footsteps. Everything about Solid Gold highlights its own being. Like much of the work that emerged from Judson, it does not attempt to stand for something other than itself; it is what it is. As Dinozord’s breathing becomes heavier as his body proportionally drips with sweat, it becomes clear that Solid Gold is about its own physicality rather than an attempt to seduce us with pleasing aesthetics. If the body is anything other than itself, it is (as many of the dances displayed here prove) a political tool . .

Full Article:

http://www.indyish.com/solid-gold-a-review/

Solid Gold: Review @ mouVoir

par Cathy De Plée

"Magnifique solo de la chorégraphe Ula Sickle et son interprète Dinozord"

Tracer l'histoire de la danse hip hop sur le corps d'un danseur, en remontant jusqu'à ses origines dans la danse africaine voilà le défit qu'à relevé magistralement la chorégraphe Ula Sickle avec son interprète Dinozord dans Solid Gold. Ce solo s'intégrait toujours dans la série idéodanse de Tangente. En danse (en arts) l'intention est une chose. L'incarner en est une autre. Or force est de constater qu'ici, rien ne s'est perdu en chemin. Au contraire. L'idée de la chorégraphe s'est comme épanouie au contact de l'énergie et de l'intelligence corporelle de son interprète. Dinozord, danseur contemporain d'origine congolaise porte en lui, comme tout danseur, une histoire corporelle faite de plusieurs couches superposée. Elle sont ici dévoilées tour à tour . .

Article complet a lire sur le blog:

http://mouvoir.blogspot.com/

Solid Gold / Upcoming

SOLID GOLD

In collaboration with Dinozord & Yann Leguay

This work-in-progress is being created in several stages thanks to residencies from: Pianofabriek Kunstenwerkplaats, Les Bains Connectives, KVS (Brussels) & Tangente (Montreal) With financial support from: VGC, Office franco-quebecois de la jeunesse, Canada Council for the Arts. Special thanks: Studio Kabako.

Try-outs:

March 18th & 19th @ 5pm - Pianofabriek
Fortstraat 35 1060 Sint-Gillis, Brussel

March 4th - 6th @ 7:30pm & 7th @ 4pm - Tangente
840 Rue Cherrier, Montreal

April 14th @ 8:30pm - KVS
Arduinkaai 9, 1000 Brussel

Created with and performed by Dinozord, a young contemporary dancer from Kinshasa, Solid Gold traces the roots of Hip Hop, from traditional African dance to forms of entertainment dance from Broadway and Hollywood to MTV. As the solo moves from one hit dance style to the next, and from one epoch to another, the amplified steps of one dance become the sound score for the next. Gradually the dancers movement becomes a musical score providing the impulse for the next groove.

Inspired by the 1979 American television show of the same name, where the previous year’s musical hits were performed in playback by a chorus of dancers, as well as by the film ìSoul Powerî on James’s Brown’s visit to the Zaire during the reign of Mobutu, Solid Gold also refers to the exploitation of the Congo's natural resources, and to its true and often overlooked resource; the energy, determination and creativity of its youth.

Concept: Ula Sickle / Created with and performed by Dinozord / Sound concept & design: Yann Leguay / Production: Rebecca September / Management: Caravanproductions for Rebecca September vzw

Viewmaster The Series - Episode 1

VIEWMASTER 2007 - 2010
Heike Langsdorf, Laurent Liefooghe & Ula Sickle


Performance: February 2nd, 8:30pm
Workshop: February 3rd - 5th
Conference: February 26th, 2-5pm
w/ Performance by Inari Salmivaara @ 8pm

The Series:

After touring since 2007 with a performance and installation for which
they developed the illusion-machine “Viewmaster”, Heike Langsdorf,
Laurent Liefooghe and Ula Sickle now offer a chance for others to explore the possibilities of this ‘magic‘ tool. “The Series” invites artists from different disciplines to use the Viewmaster to produce a new work. Works emerging can range from cinematic, performative, visual and even auditive attempts to make use of the tool. Each time the Viewmaster moves to another residency location, a new work is added to the series by a guest artist.

The first installment will be co-produced by Huis a/d Werf in Utrecht, where Finnish choreographer Inari Salmivaara will explore the box during a two-week residency in February 2010. The workshop and residency will be accompanied by a seminare for the PHD students of the Media and performance department of the University of Utrecht on the topic of ‘Liveness’.

@ Huis a/d Werf, Utrecht


For more about Inari
Huis a/d Werf

Viewmaster in rekto : verso

Kijken is de Kunst
Wouter Hillaert
 / redactioneel

Abstracte, hedendaagse dans als een bezwerende, bijna hallucinatorische trip, waar je je ogen bij uitwrijft? Het kan. Zo’n ervaring bood deze zomer de installatie Viewmaster op Theater Aan Zee. Het Brusselse trio Heike Langsdorf, Ula Sickle en Laurent Liefooghe bouwde een simpele triplex box met twee kamers die in een rechte hoek op elkaar aansluiten. Een schuin spiegelglas scheidt beide kamers, volgens de principes van de negentiende-eeuwse machine ‘Pepper’s ghost illusion’. Met wisselende belichtingen kun je het publiek, dat via een centraal raam de box inkijkt, de illusie geven dat er twee dansers, elk in hun eigen kamertje, op dezelfde plek dooreenvloeien als geesten, als in een live videoclip. Het zorgde voor een van de hoogst denkbare artistieke ervaringen. Je ogen bij de neus genomen.

Zo zijn er twee soorten kunst die ingrijpen op het kijken zelf. Er is kunst die het erbij moet zeggen dat ze je kijk verandert. En er is kunst die dat gewoon doet, voor iedereen met twee ogen. Creaties à la Viewmaster of beeldend werk als dat van Escher of Magritte gaan naar de essentie van kunst. Ze bevragen heel concreet de objectieve blik waarmee we naar de wereld menen te kijken. Ze vertrekken daarbij niet van voorkennis, maar van de simpele gelijkheid tussen ziende mensen. In die zin bespelen ze ook de essentie van wat een ‘publiek’ is: aanschouwers, viewers . . .

rekto : verso
(for full article)

Viewmaster @ Theater Aan Zee

Viewmaster opened at TAZ / Theater Aan Zee, Oostende 03/08 - 07/08 2009, with 10 performances over 5 days @ the Stadshuis in the city center. An Article about Viewmaster appeared in deMorgen, weekend-edition Aug 1st.

Knockout, The Director's Cut

December Dance Platform,
December Dance festival

Saturday December 13th 2008 _ 16:30
Stadsschowburg, Brugge


First performed in 2005, Knockout comes to the stage again for December Dance. At the invitation of the festival the piece has been 'recut' and includes a new, previously unreleased scene.

"A dreary night in Rome, on the soundtrack the click of a cigarette lighter, the sound of smoke being inhaled. A woman in a long raincoat with a platinum blond wig lounging on a street corner. It could not be more typically film noir. These few details hint at a world of seduction and betrayal, of double moral standards and romantic cynicism. It is precisely from this twilight zone that choreographer Ula Sickle, sound designer Peter Lenaerts and visual artist Alexis Destoop drew inspiration for their first collaboration, Knockout.

Knockout could very well be a choreographed variant of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive; an out of joint montage of constructed fantasies, desires and expectations.”

Elke Van Campenhout
 (translated by Tom Hannes)


Concept: Ula Sickle, Alexis Destoop and Peter Lenaerts | Choreography: Ula Sickle | Developed & Performed by: Tawny Andersen & Ula Sickle | Sound Design: Peter Lenaerts | Scenography: Alexis Destoop | Light Design: Jan Maertens | Assitant: Nele Ana Reipl | Costumes Veronique Branquinho | Produced by Wp Zimmer for Rebecca September VZW | Co-produced by Pact Zollverein Essen, with the support of Dans In Kortrijk, Netwerk Aalst, Nadine Brussels, The Canada Council for the Arts & the Flemish Minister for Culture, Youth, Sport and Brussels Affairs.

Viewmaster @ Teatr Nowy

Viewmaster @ Teatr Nowy / Warsaw

Viewmaster - upcoming shows

VIEWMASTER
upcoming shows :

30/08/08 _ 20:00
31/08/08 _ 16:00
05/09/08 _ 20:30
06/09/08 _ 21:30
SHUFFLE
Kaaistudios / Brussels
www.kaaitheater.be

08/10/08 _ 22:00
09/10/08 _ 22:00
10/10/08 _ 22:00
11/10/08 _ 22:00
14/10/08 _ 22:00
15/10/08 _ 22:00
ALMOST CINEMA
Vooruit / Gent
www.vooruit.be

Considered a tool for gallery spaces as well as the theaters, the Viewmaster
is a transportable mini-theater and live-cinema machine in one. It’s peculiar
architecture and function is inspired by the Pepper’s Ghost Illusion, a well
known optical trick made popular in the theater during the late nineteenth
century, before the invention of cinema. Using the illusion as a central
mechanism, the Viewmaster produces a cinema based on the sequence
of reflections rather than projected images.

Viewmaster (2007)

The viewmaster explores pre-cinema technology - using a well know optical illusion called the 'pepper effect', the viewmaster proposes an archaic cinema, one that uses live images in the form of reflections versus projected ones.

Since the invention of projection in the late 19th century, film has become practically synonymous with the cinema or movie theater. Modeled after the traditional theater dispositive, the place where films are shown is a divided space: on the one hand is the screen, acting as a window onto an imaginary depth, and on the other, the auditorium, acting as a single, shared point of view, occupied by an audience that sit immobile in the dark.

The viewmaster reconfigures this traditional set-up, proposing a cinema where auditorium and screen are reversible, where multiple view points are possible and where the visitor can be both viewer and participant within a live image making process.

Based on an optical trick made popular in the theater and predating the invention of projection technology, the viewmaster make use of light, reflection and the presence of the spectators to create an ever changing array of moving images.

Considered a tool for gallery spaces as well as the theaters, the viewmaster was co produced by in Netwerk / Center for Contemporary Art for an exhibition September 15th - October 20th, 2007 with performances the 5th and 20th of October.

next performances -

Dedonderdagen @ DeSingel, Antwerp February 14th
Kaaitheater Studios August 29th - September 7th
Vooruit Gent, Almost Cinema October 7th - 18th


Concept / performance Heike Langsdorf & Ula Sickle concept / architecture Laurent Liefooghe sound design Peter Connelly light design Hans Meijer production management for Rebecca September vzw Natalie Schrauwen With the support of: KC Netwerk Aalst, kunst-werk / f,r,o,g,s - OS, Nadine, wp Zimmer and the Flemish Minister for Youth, Culture, Sport and Brussels Affairs. A Rebecca September production.




Photo: Josephine Hirschi / Film: Sebastian Koeppel

Knockout (2005)

"A dreary night in Rome, on the soundtrack the click of a cigarette lighter, the sound of smoke being inhaled. A woman in a long raincoat with a platinum blond wig lounging on a street corner. It could not be more typically film noir. These few details hint at a world of seduction and betrayal, of double moral standards and romantic cynicism. It is precisely that twilight zone from which the collective Rebecca September drew its inspiration for its first performance, Knockout."

The collective’s name refers to Hitchcock’s American debut: Rebecca. The performance Knockout noticeably uses Hitchcock elements as well: the two dancers are each other’s mirror image, their faces hidden behind a blond and dark wig. Just like the splitting up of the mysterious main character Madeleine/Judy in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the performance plays on the two-sided suggestiveness of eroticism and morality: the femme fatale veiled in platinum blond virtuousness.

Knockout could very well be a choreographed variant of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive; an out of joint montage of constructed fantasies, desires and expectations."
Elke Van Campenhout, De Standaard

Concept Rebecca September | Choreography Ula Sickle | Developed & Performed by Tawny Andersen & Ula Sickle | Sound Design Peter Lenaerts | Scenography Alexis Destoop | Assitant Nele Ana Riepl | Produced by wp Zimmer for Rebecca September vzw | Co-produced by Pact Zollverein Essen. | With the support of Dans In Kortrijk, Netwerk Aalst, Nadine Brussels, The Canada Council for the Arts & the Flemish Minister for Culture, Youth, Sport and Brussels Affairs.

A Rebecca September production.






Photo: Alexis Destoop / Film: Peter Lenearts