research-residency for Liselotte Singer & Marc Philipp Gabriel at Riksteatern

Artists: Liselotte Singer (DE) & Marc Philipp Gabriel (FR)

Collaboratos : Gabriel Smeets, Sindri Runudde, Rebecka Stillman, Matthew Branham, Frédéric Gies

Description: Upon recommendation by the co-organizer Uferstudios Berlin, Cullberg Ballet invited Liselotte Singer (DE, dancer/ choreographer) and Marc Philipp Gabriel (DE, dancer/ choreographer) for a two weeks research-residency without the pressure of production at Cullberg Ballets location in the production house of Riksteatern (Swedish National Touring Theatre). During the residency, Cullberg Ballet offered lodging in a central apartment hotel, individual local travel cards, a large studio, morning classes with the company, fitness facilities, technical support, and artistic advice in a creative environment. Cullberg Ballet also covered the travel costs, per diem and the artist received an individual fee.

The research residency proposal for Liselotte and Marc for their piece « Twin » was based on our contemporary society of the individual and its « self made man » made us theoretically free of all ontological bonds with our kind; the ambient feeling that results is a deep loneliness.

Liselotte and Marc proposed to concretely put themselves  in the opposite situation; how does it feel to never be alone?  To know that anywhere you go there is always another with you ? Which kind of exhaustion or energy would araise that can feed and be transformed into a creative process? For these two weeks they proposed themselves as a pair, that is there as such in its environment. They would always keep an eye on each other by being at no less than 3 meters apart from each other at all times, 24 hours of the day.  To be in a residency context would set up for them the perfect conditions: same working space, same appartment, new habits, new social context. They proposed to work physically and create a dance performance. To continue their research on intimacy, distance, proximity, anesthesy of the sexual body, boredome and frustration. They would integrate their current personal interests and practices to the rehearsals. Considering their base line, discussing and being outside would also be a source for material.

During the residency the couple also instigated a number of threesomes by sending out a letter of invitation ;

* * *

Lilo and Marc from Berlin are on a residency at Cullbergbaletten. We will be staying within 3 meters

of each other for the whole period. In the studio, on the street, in the bathroom, during the night, in

the supermarket and in ballet class. And see what comes up. Excessive sharing. Experiencing shifts in

identity and individuality. Developing a performance as a side product. Testing what we are and what

we are together and what we are together with you. And we would like to invite you to join us for one

hour!

If you are curious to join, we would like you to decide (or suggest) what you would like to do

together, or how you would like to be together, the three of us, for one hour.

We meet, we share, we part.

Introducing a series of threesomes to the couple.

If you are in Stockholm between May 25 and June 5, let us know! You can pick your favourite hour

(there are 24 each day) and we would love to get together with you. Whatever it will be.

We can meet at the studio of Cullberg Ballet at the Riksteatern in Norsborg or wherever you want to meet in Stockholm.

We are curious!

Kisses

Lilo & Marc

* * *

Their aim was to reach out to artists in Stockholm that they wouldn’t have met otherwise. It turned out that they met only a few people, but most of them several times, which enabled them to get to know each person on a deeper level.

During their first meeting, Sindri Runudde proposed them to exotify him for one hour. On the second meeting he invited them to perform a wedding inside his sound installation at Cirkus Cirkör. The third time they met, they danced an hour in the dark at the graduation party of DOCH. Rebecka Stillman challenged their spatial restriction by taking them to play minigolf. They met again to hike around a lake and a third time to go to a lecture performance at Köttinspektionen Dans, a new performance venue in Uppsala. Following their advice, they also went to see performances at Weld and MDT. Their discovery of the local dance scene was further enhanced by meeting and chatting with Matthew Branham, currently a dancer of Stadsteatern Stockholm, as well as Frédéric Gies who introduced them to his Technosomatic practice at the club Trädgården. The external meetings and the studio sessions seemed to inform each other effortlessly. Since their proposal was open enough to overlap with the interest of their counterparts, but at the same time specific enough to trigger engagement into new thoughts and ideas for everyone involved. This potential between openness and specificity also reflects in the material that they developed in the studio, two people inevitably orbiting around each other, forming a unique, inescapable constellation, impersonating the “archetypical couple” at the same time, in the same space ; "We are indulging in a cosmic fatalism."