Begüm Erciyas - Pillow Talk
Begüm Erciyas works in her performances with the power of the voice and the act of speaking. After the successful Voicing Pieces, this year she presents a new creation that focuses on the experience of the voice as an uncanny medium. Because, although we use it to express our personal convictions and feelings, in the digital age we are often in doubt about who is speaking: is it a person or a machine? This doubt and this conviction alternate constantly in Pillow Talk. Spread over a hilly landscape, the public enters into a dialogue with a virtual conversation partner. An artificial voice functions as a mediator, a companion and a mirror. While conversations are being constructed one word at a time, impressions are being shared, naps are being taken and time passes, Pillow Talk invites you to engage in an intimate relationship with the non-human.
While studying molecular biology and genetics in Ankara, Begüm Erciyas was engaged in various dance projects in Turkey and became part of [laboratuar], a performing arts research and project group. Later, she studied at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance in Austria. Since 2006, she has been an active member of Sweet and Tender Collaborations, taking part in several collaborative and collective projects and meetings. She was artist-in-residence at Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2007/08, at K3- Zentrum für Choreographie Hamburg in 2009, at the Villa Kamogawa / Goethe Institute Kyoto in 2014 and at Circuit Est / Goethe Institute Montréal in 2015. She received a research fellowship from the Saison Foundation Tokyo in 2017.
Her past works, such as Ballroom (2010), this piece is still to come (2012), A Speculation (2014), Voicing Pieces (2016), have been presented at several venues and in various contexts, such as Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Tanz im August Festival (Berlin), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Kaaistudios (Brussels), STUK (Leuven), iDANS (Istanbul), Tanzquartier Wien (Vienna), EMPAC (Troy), Malta Festival (Poznan).