Benjamin Kahn - Cri(s)...

Cri(s)…, is een nieuwe interdisciplinaire podiumvoorstelling die de schreeuw en zijn materialiteit onderzoekt door verschillende vormen van fysieke en performatieve aanpakken. Het studio-onderzoek is geïnspireerd op muzikale referenties zoals experimentele rap, opera en heavy metal, politieke speeches en sociale samenkomsten, waardoor we bestaande manieren van schreeuwen en de bijhorende echo's belichamen en uitbreiden. Cri(s)... wil de beperkingen verkennen van het uitwisselen van kwetsbaarheden en de trend om (bijna) alles te verhandelen. Urgentie wordt de nieuwe pasmunt in een de huidige maatschappij - ramptoerisme is de nieuwe motor van zelfkapitalisatie. Desondanks kan de schreeuw fluctueren en vloeien tussen verschillende stemmingen en associaties, functioneren als tool ter ondersteuning en controle.

De residentie is gelinkt aan de vorige ontwikkelingsfase en vormt de laatste onderzoeksperiode in de studio voor de start van de productie van het werk. Op dit moment onderzoeken we de materialiteit van de schreeuw en hoe die kan worden geactiveerd en gebruikt als choreografisch instrument op een podium en/of in de publieke ruimte. Door het werk met de dansers en muzikant bekijken we welk soort lichamelijkheid ontstaat door de daad en het geluid van schreeuwen. Hoe is de schreeuw aanwezig in ons dagelijks leven als kanaal voor urgentie en hoe wordt het uitgevoerd, gerepresenteerd en gereproduceerd? Hoe kan die ene daad zich manifesteren en zich verhouden tot soms tegengestelde ervaringen en betekenissen, en zowel een primaire, instinctieve drang betekenen als een uitdrukking van fragiliteit? In de studio stellen we somatische praktijken en beweging in vraag, en kijken we naar hun basis voor geluid maar ook hun impact op het schreeuwen als handeling. Ter opvolging van de verschillende onderzoekspistes wil ik een radicale praktijk verder onderzoeken, vanuit en met het doel op een index van bestaande codes, interpretaties en gebruiken van de schreeuw. In de studio willen we dieper duiken in modellen van hoe uitgebreide choreografische praktijken van die vragen een ruimtelijke en lichamelijke materie kunnen maken.

TEAM

Benjamin Kahn (Choreographer)
Cherish Menzo (outside eye - choreography)
Theo Aucremanne (performer)
Sati Veyrunes (performer)
Julien Desprez (musical director)
Julia Reist/arp.works (artistic research assistant / Production)

Benjamin Kahn (Choreographer) is a dancer and choreographer. He studied dramaturgy and theater at the University of Aix en Provence and at the Rennes Conservatory, and is a graduate of the ESAC (Ecole Supérieure des Arts du Cirque) in Belgium. After his studies, he worked with choreographers such as Philippe Saire, Benjamin Vandewalles, Nicole Beutler, Ben Riepe, Frédéric Flamand, Maud Le Pladec, Egle Budvytyte, and Alessandro Sciaronni. He considers dance and choreography as powerful political tools and is particularly interested in the construction and deconstruction of the way we look at individual and collective bodies.

Cherish Menzo (performer, assistant Choreographer) graduated in 2013 from The Urban Contemporary (JMD) at the ‘Hogeschool voor de Kunsten’ in Amsterdam. After her graduation she has danced in several productions of various choreographers such as Eszter Salamon, Akram Khan, Leo Lerus, Hanzel Nezza, Olivier Dubois, Lisbeth Gruwez, Jan Martens and Nicole Beutler. Next to her work as a dancer and performer Cherish creates her own work. In 2016 she created the dance performance EFES in collaboration with Nicole Geertruida (Bronze award winner Amsterdam Fringe). This dance duet presents a hypnotic, rhythmical performance that totally absorbs the audience in a metronome-like universe of two people utterly absorbed and driven by the beat (Julian Caddy). Since 2018, Menzo performs the solo Sorry But I Feel Slightly Disidentified... by Benjamin Kahn. A portrait that aims to trigger the notion of stereotypes. This close collaboration has been initiated in 2017 in the frame of Fraslab (Frascati Productions). The project was quickly followed by LIVE (Veem House for Performance, 2018), a hybrid mix of dance performance and pop/ rock concert, made together with musician Müşfik Can Müftüoğlu. In 2019, Cherish presented JEZEBEL, which won an Amsterdam Fringe Award and an International Bursary Award. The production had its premiere on November 5th at Frascati (Amsterdam, NL) and has been nominated for the BNG Bank Theaterprijs 2020.

Theo Aucremanne (performer) starts dancing with classical and jazz in a village school.Then enters an association where he also started to work with contemporary dance. In parallel to his three dominant dances, he went to explore other dances such as American tap, break dance and flamenco. In 2017, he obtains the EAT (technical aptitude test) in contemporary and jazz. The same year, he enters the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers and graduates with a professional higher national diploma of dancer in July 2020. During his training, he was able to encounter a diversity of works from creators such as, Pina Bausch, Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, Odile Duboc. He was also able to work with choreographers such as Ambra Senatore, Alban Richard on creations as part of his professional training. Aucremanne had the opportunity to do workshops with companies such as François Chaignaud, Gisèle Vienne, Alban Richard and Maud Le Pladec. Still within the framework of his studies, he began to compose his own choreographic pieces.

Sati Veyrunes (performer) graduated from SEAD in 2019. She has worked with NeedCompany/ Jan Lauwers for the Salzburger Festspiele, the Icelandic choreographer Erna Ómarsdóttir for the transmission of her solo IBM 1401, A user's manual and with Oona Doherty for the revival of her solo Hope Hunt in 2021. Parallel to her experience as a dancer, she is a third-year student of history at the University Paris Nanterre. Through these various collaborations Sati is interested in the profound work that links the changes of opposing physical states in the same body, the exploration of the voice and the power of the underground forces that sustain the performer's performance.

Julien Desprez (musical director), is a musician and performer based in Paris. Jazz and rock were his early musical loves but they evolved rapidly to free forms where body and space find their places through sound. As his practice progressed, his conception and approach to his instrument as well, and music and space changed. He is now considering the guitar more like a battery, an organ, a modifiable instrument deployable at will.Through a mix of actions on the instrument and a play of foot on efect pedals, taking inspiration from the technique of Tap Dance, it completely opened the possibilities, sound and physical environment of the instrument. This results in a practice where body is engaged to its fullest.Now evolving between sound art, performance and contemporary improvisational music, his work today is centered around all the questions that exist within a stage space, through body, space, sight and light, but where the sound remains the central pillar. Julien is also a co-founder of the Collectif Coax, a music cooperative based in Paris and created in 2008, which was recently labeled "Compagnie Nationale" by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.