°human specific°


HUMAN SPECIFIC PERFORMING ART

Human Specific Performing Art  is a new approach within contemporary theatre. It is defined as performances that:

• offers personalized and intimate experiences to members of the audience
• is designed to receive small audience groups or individuals in order to relate individually to each person
• is dependent on audience participation
• facilitates genuine encounters in immersive environments
• explores and employs different forms of sensorial communication
• allows audience members to navigate through an aesthetic and sensuous universe

To establish the term HSPA has been an initiative of Nullo Facchini/Cantabile2. A company that Eva has been working with since 2008. Eva Isolde Balzer is often focusing on intimate and autobiographical aspects in her works as performer and director. She has a special interest in performing in one-on-one setups or for a small audience. Emphasis is given to both, the very personal reason for the performers to do their performative actions, and the search for a specific contact with the spectator, that reaches them on a very human level.

 

PROJECTS

EARTHPORT 2015-2016

a collaboration between Lamusica (Egypt) & meet MIMOSA (Germany) 2015-2016

in cooperation with: Vierte Welt – Kollaborationen, Berlin and Osiris art production and training, Cairo

funded by Szenenwechsel – a program of Robert Bosch Foundation and the International Theatre Institute & supported with means from Bezirkuskulturfonds through Bezirkskulturamt Friedrichshain- Kreuzberg

concept/directing: Nora Amin, Eva Isolde Balzer
concept/dramaturgy development: André Vollrath
performance: Pasquale Virginie Rotter, Adel Abdel Wahab, Shehab Ibrahim,
Adham El-Said, Omar El-Moutaz Bel’lah, Nora Amin, Eva Isolde Balzer, André Vollrath
set and costume design/photos: Can Rastovic
video- documentation: André Vollrath
Earthport is an intercultural artistic experiment to shift borders, transgress labels and recreate a healing human connection through performance. Each performance  welcomes an intimate group of six audience members. In one-on-one encounters with performers they will explore the complexity of individual identities and their entanglement in dominant cultural and political narratives. Read more @ www.earthport-project.blogspot.de
Earthport brings together four performers from Lamusica Independent Theatre Group (Cairo) with three performers from the performance collective meet MIMOSA (Berlin) with multiple identities in terms of „nationality“, „religion“, “ethnicity”, „gender“ and „ability“. Earthport explores how humans can connect with each other and transgress the dominant cultural and political narratives bound to these labels (like for example: “Egyptians are muslims” and “Germans are white”). Gaining clarity about the complexity of the own identity, the value of the knowledge that rises from different backgrounds of experience as well as understanding the own entanglement in dominant cultural and political discourses the divers cast will challenge its own and the spectators perception of “the self” and “the other”. It will raise the question how healing ourselves and connecting to the world and others is possible in a local and at the same time global society promoting inequality and oppression on divers levels.

Earthport employs this method to create a space where intimate interactions between members of the audience and individual performers can happen in one-on-one meetings. It uses the direct contact as a space in which one may possibly become aware of and let go dominant projections of “the other” and encounter the complexity and dignity of a person. The development of the content of the individual scenes largely depends on the performers. It is their needs, their experiences and their divers perspectives that shape the path the audience will take to meet them, in the true sense of the word.

 

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CANTABILE 2   2008-2015

 

 

 

 


 

Since 2008 Eva is performing with the Danish Theatre Cantabile2 in human – and site-specific one-on-one performances, such as the Venus Labyrinth and Seek to Seek, where she performs for, or meets one spectator at a time. Cantabile2 is an internationally acclaimed theatre company which is based in Vordingborg, Denmark. It is directed by Nullo Facchini. The basis of the performances are autobiographical and sensorial aspects, which lead to a great intimacy between spectator and performer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Human-specific performance deals with the universal sensitivity of the human as an emotional being. A human-specific performance relates to its spectators as individuals and not as a mass. Every person buying a ticket is looked at, touched, talked directly to and likewise engaged in personal meetings at different levels with the performers. Visitors of the performance enter alone or in small groups, operate personal choices and give personal responses, experience a visit to the performance space as a sort of a meditative act, fully focused on him/herself and on his/her interaction with the performers. Human-specific performance contains elements that directly challenge senses, often by obstructing other senses: all other senses are immensely sharpened, when you cannot actually see, touch, hear, or verbally respond to questions.

 

 

 

 

 

Read more about Cantabile2‘s human specific work, the Venus labyrinth and Seek to Seek:

Mehr über Cantabile2‘s Menschen spezifische Arbeit:
cantabile2 Menschen spezifisch

Trailer: Venus Labyrinth & Seek to Seek

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BALZER – STOYANOVA 2011-2016

www.balzer-stoyanova.org

 

BalzerStoyanova is a project with Barcelona based performance artist Maria Stoyanova. BalzerStoyanova creates human specific installations, like HOPE- HUMAN INSTALLATION (2011)
HOPE – Human Installation has been performed in 3 versions in Berlin and Barcelona, featuring more than 35 artists from 9 countries, lasting from 5 to 48 hours and in site specific as well as more traditional spaces. It has been experienced by several thousands of spectators. 
HOPE – Human Installation connects artists of different disciplines in a human installation of long duration. It combines individual interactions of one performer&one spectator with a structure in which the members of the audience move and observe freely. The distinction performer-spectator is shaken. HOPE – Human Installation is a ritual which consists of very personal performances which take place simultaneously over the full duration of the performance. It unites in every performance different artists – local performers or performers from the team of BalzerStoyanova – professionals or in specific setups students or amateurs.

HOPE was performed at Uferstudios/Berlin April 2011, 48 Stunden Neukölln/Berlin July 2011, and at Antic Theatre, Barcelona, Mai 2011.

 

see the trailers of here: HOPE

For more information:

www.balzer-stoyanova.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DNA/KOME 2009-2011

 DNA (premiered in 2009) is an intimate autobiographical performance that was directed and performed by Monika Wachowitz, Karolina Pietrzykowska and Eva Isolde Balzer as the performance group KoME. It was created in collaboration with Cantabile2 and was invited through the residency-program DIVA of the Danish Ministry of Culture. It premiered in 2009 in Denmark and has been performed in different cities in festivals in Germany, Denmark and Poland.

DNA is based on three actresses’ personal life experiences. They all share their intimate views they hold about themselves, their mothers and their grandmothers, with spectators, using story telling, physical theatre and ritual theatre as tools. It consists of 3 stories, 3 specific conversations each actress has with her mother, initiated by a letter each actress reads to her mother, telling her things, she has never told her before…Conversations that become one greater dialogue and exchange with the Mother and the World. The spectator is a witness, a welcomed guest and sometimes an assistant or an accomplice. In spectators’ privileged position they may take a glance at what usually remains hidden. The space hosting the performance is an empty garden of tomatoes, filled with  the actresses‘ presence and minimal props…It is supported and transformed by music and light which are run by the actresses themselves. The production of the piece was further enhanced by a dynamic which is created through the sharing and shifting of the roles of author, director, stage-, costume- and light-designer.

DNA was performed at Theaterlabor Bielefeld/Germany,  Vordingborg, Copenhagen and Ballerup/Denmark and Kattowice(Festival APart),Bencin, Krakow, Polcin /Poland

Trailer: DNA 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photos Cantabile2©Nullo Facchini
photos HOPE©Toni Alonso+privat
photos DNA© Nullo Facchini/Tom Dombrowski