Noah Rees & Johann Eggebrecht: Melting

Concept & Performance: Noah Rees, Johann Eggebrecht

Artistic audio description: Jojo Büttler

Co-author: Silja Korn

Sound design: Constantin Carstens

Duration: 20 Minuten

The piece does not take place in the classic stage setting. The audience sits on the four sides of the "stage" on chairs and cushions. In some places there may be glare from spotlights. A subwoofer is used, close to which the bass sounds can be physically felt.

Image description:

A scene in ada studio with natural light, during rehearsal: Johann is lying on his back with his legs bent upwards. He balances Noah on his feet who is looking down, towards Johann. Noah's body is stretched out, his legs are slightly bent and spread apart. Noah and Johann have white skin and short blond hair. They are wearing gray short-sleeved T-shirts, black jogging pants with 3 white stripes on each side and white sneakers.

In their piece "Melting", Noah Rees and Johann Eggebrecht critically reflect on masculinity and male friendship from a queer-feminist perspective. Starting from the aesthetic framework of an MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fight and supported by theoretical input from the author Bell Hooks, they embark on an embodied adventure in a confusing world of tenderness, violence, fragility, competition, connection, holding and being held. In an attempt to deconstruct and reflect on how their socialisation impacted how they relate to each other, they searched for new values regarding the different ways to create connections and care for one another.

Johann Eggebrecht, currently based in Berlin, blends his background in contemporary circus with his ongoing studies in Dance, Context and Choreography at HZT Berlin. His artistic journey is guided by an exploration of somatic practices, instant composition and meditation, as well as a keen interest in queer theory. Through his performances, Johann aims to challenge societal norms while celebrating the fluidity of identity. With humility, he hopes to offer audiences a transformative experience, inviting them to journey alongside him through the expressive power of movement and introspection. His artistic practice is committed to exploring the intersection of art, healing and self-expression with a strong emphasis on embodiment and community engagement.

Noah Rees is a Berlin-based performer and dance maker. With his work he explores ideas of softening and allowing doubts to be visible inside and outside the body, both on stage and in life. He is interested in the gap that physically separates people. What does it say, and how can we bridge it to support each other, feel each other and allow intimacy and vulnerability to be at the core of our interactions? Noah initially trained in circus arts at DIE ETAGE, which formed his physicality. Through diving into somatic practices and other forms of physical training at HZT Berlin, where he is enrolled in the BA Dance, Context and Choreography, he has expanded his understanding of dance and considers it a tool to criticise existing power structures and form communities. Noah is interested in working in collaborative, interdisciplinary and caring environments.

Andrea D’Arsiè: Grief Songs

Concept & Sound: Andrea D’Arsiè

Duration: 20 minutes

The piece does not take place in the classic stage situation. The audience is invited to interact. Guests can move and position themselves freely in the space and, if they wish, close their eyes during the performance. 

The piece contains some very loud, intense music that creates vibrations and engages the body. There is a constantly audible and perceptible bass. Ear protection is provided. The room is very dark in places. In other places, bright, sometimes pulsating spotlights are used.

Trigger warning: The sound can evoke associations of violence and death.

Image description:

A scene in ada studio with natural light, during rehearsal: Andrea is half sitting, half lying on the floor. He rests his right hand on the floor and his left hand is on his right knee. Andrea has brown short wavy air and green eyes. Andrea is quite tall and thin. Andrea is wearing loose beige long jeans, black sneakers and a black t-shirt with a light-blue print on the front and a white logo on the back.

"Grief Songs" is a sound solo composed with audio material recorded in the dance studio. The compositional dramaturgy includes vocal scores, breath work, field recordings, and concrete music, collaged and mixed in a four-channel spatialised audio. "Grief Songs" emerged from Andrea’s interest in discussing the boundaries and limits of a singular body in relation to its longings. A personal period of grief became an occasion to ask, from a state of discomfort, if the affects of grief can be lifted out of the purely negative and instead become a more complex landscape in which multiple feelings such as hope, connection and radical vitality can coexist. The piece proposes a shared experience of grief through the format of collective listening in which the audience is invited to lie down and perceive with their eyes closed. Andrea asks: What can you discover when you’re not feeling whole? How does one negotiate between different pieces of oneself, from something one has lost to something one calls for? "Grief Songs" invites the audience into a sonic landscape which attempts to move from a private perspective of grief towards a shared transformation.

Andrea D’Arsiè is a performer, musician and artist based in Berlin. Andrea works with the body as matter permeated by transformative affects. He is interested in the performing arts as a way to share embodied experience while affirming more complex ways of relating to the world and each other. He uses voice as a tool to explore movement and sound. He also plays live sets and DJ sets in ambient, noise and experimental music. Andrea studied visual arts and performing arts at IUAV in Venice. He completed the Tanzfabrik Dance Intensive Program in 2022/23 and is a danceWEB scholar in 2024. He has worked for performance artists such as Billy Bultheel and Isabel Lewis in the contexts of Berlin Atonal, Fondazione Prada, Santarcangelo Festival. Andrea self-released the EPs Many Scratches Make a World in 2022 and Spring’s Fury in 2024.

Marta Ferraris: Tire-bouchon

Concept & Performance: Marta Ferraris

Sound: DJ Jetski, Pierluigi Di Camillo/ARCN Lab Studio

Duration: 20 minutes

The piece sometimes uses long-lasting sequences of high-frequency tones.

Image description:

A scene in ada studio with natural light, during rehearsal: Small in stature but sturdy, Marta has brown eyes and hair, thick eyebrows, and an upturned nose. Her face is serious and traced by a few lines of expression. She is barefoot and wears a long black skirt from which her legs can sometimes be glimpsed. Marta stands in a handstand with her arms bent, her legs high up in the air. Her back is turned to the camera. 

"Tire-bouchon" follows performer Marta Ferraris as she navigates through redundant physical language and strives to reconnect with her inner voice. Behind a closed door lie the paradoxes of human existence and critical judgments that stifle intuition and emotional intelligence. Inspired by autobiographical reflections, the artist explores gestural ambiguity. Can gestures devoid of meaning exist? If so, in what ways can they be interpreted? The choreography integrates various physical vocabularies and departs from conceptual research into contrasting dialectics. Disjointed fragments of life, habits and streams of consciousness collide in a permeable and enigmatic dance where the body struggles against form, and the mind grapples with an understanding beyond comprehension. Established patterns may clash, points of view may shift, and the boundaries of the mind may blur.

Marta Ferraris, originally from Italy, is a dancer, teacher, and author based in Berlin. Marta’s training includes various dance techniques such as ballet (Accademia Teatro alla Scala), oriental dance (Persepolis Company), contemporary dance (DEOS Company), movement research (Tanzfabrik), and circus arts. Marta's practice delves into the deconstruction of aesthetics and body ideals in dance. In promoting inner creative empowerment and through the strong use of gestures, her dance practice is characterised by contrasting dialectics. Marta focuses on bridging tradition with innovation while sharing the communicative and therapeutic power of dance. She collaborates with the transfeminist collectives corpX in movimento and Hütte, engaging in projects that reclaim urban spaces for the arts.

Olivia Das: Keeping in mind

Choreography & Dance: Olivia Das

Sound composition: Nick Das

Duration: 15 Minutes

Colored light is used and there is a bang at the end of the piece in addition to the continuous sound.

Trigger warning: The sound contains sequences of beeps that can evoke associations with emergency situations in hospitals. 

Image description:

A scene in ada studio with natural light, during rehearsal: Olivia is a white female with brown hair in a ponytail and bangs. She is wearing black pants with white stripes on the side and a light grey short-sleeved button-up shirt with flowers embroidered on the front pocket. She is lying on the studio floor, resting her body on her right arm and leg. Her upper body is turned towards the back, she is looking slightly up and behind, holding her left arm in the same direction. 

"Keeping in mind" aims to explore the fluid and chaotic nature of our minds. Inspired by her own dealings with thoughts, focus and presence, Olivia examines how our thoughts can affect us physically and the patterns in which they function. Though our thoughts are not physical, they are felt. The brain can feel burdened and the body restless. Our thoughts pile up, get forgotten and distract us, resulting in a difficulty to be present. "Keeping in mind" deals with the question of how something weightless can take up so much space and attempts to find moments of presence through breath and stillness.

Olivia Das is an American dance artist based in Berlin. She started dancing at a young age, training in contemporary dance, ballet, and hip-hop. She expanded her technical foundation with a diploma in contemporary dance from Danceworks in Berlin. Upon graduating in 2023, she started developing her own artistic work. Music plays a primary role in her choreographic projects, especially in relation to atmosphere. The subjects of her creations are often born out of the nuances of her own life. Starting from this personal place, she seeks to find a universality that everyone can relate to in some way.