Residency Wilhelm and Groener at NDA Slovenia PART 1

In the frame of the Creative Crossroad activity, the duo Wilhelm & Gröner was selected by Uferstudios Berlin to receive a 2 years structural support by the LLB network to work on their productions "33 Skizzen" and "“Anatomie. Evolution. Anfang. Ende…”

This support includes support by Uferstudios Berlin, a co-production and a residency by ICI-CCN, a residency at NDA Slovenia and a stay at STUK Leuven.

Support by Uferstudios Berlin:

WILHELM GROENER are the artists-duo Uferstudios chosen as outgoing artists. The choice was made due to the strong involvement of WILHELM GROENER with the Uferstudios, but especially because WIHELM GROENER have developed a very unique artistic language oscillating between choreographic praxis, dance and visual arts. Their development of work evolves very organically from one process to the other, picking up lines of thoughts and enquiries from former works. They have been present in the Berlin dance scene for more than 10 years, and represent a very special stream of artistic approach that reaches beyond the main stream artistic output in the city. Yet, with their early approach towards genre-crossing of dance and visual arts, they were pioneers of an aesthetic discourse that in the last years has gained much more visibility. 

As stable and outstanding their career in Berlin was, WILHELM GROENER never really made their way into a stronger international standing. In order to push that line of career building of the duo, the Creative Crossroads format offers perfect chances to establish connections to other European venues and organizations. 

WILHELM GROENER entered Creative Crossroads with following interests: to continue their work of trilogy on different notions of reality and body, evolving into works like D.R.A.G, 33 Skizzen and A.E. And to enter stronger into questioning the concept of archive in performing arts, especially within and around their own oeuvre. For both issues the matching with partner institutions of LLB evolved organically and resulted in quite perfect connections. ICI Montpellier offered them a residency with the opportunity to work on their new project A.E., premiering in November 2019 in Berlin (Tieranatomisches Institut) with a student from EXERCE and to install a showing of a in-progress version of 33 Skizzen at ICI. NDA Slovenia will invite them to exchange and practice thoughts on archiving, one of the main streams of concern of NDA Slovenia. The exchange of expertise from both sides is planned for spring 2020. In the same context, Uferstudios agreed to coproduce the catalogue reflecting and documenting the last trilogy of WILHELM GROENER, to be published in 2020.

Simone Willeit, as general manager of the Life Long Burning project, has continuously kept contact with WILHELM GROENER, with suggestions of outreach towards the other LLB partners, exploring what matches could be most fruitful, but also in advising them on how to build an international network beyond the LLB partners. At the same time Simone Willeit gave further support to Wilhelm Groener in general questions of administration, freelance working procedures, PR work and touring. 

In general, the action “Creative Crossroads” allows the network of LLB to establish a stronger connection to the chosen artists, and to follow and support their career building on a more substantial level then with some of the other one-off actions of the project. It gives more sustainability in the connections build and offers the artists a necessary anchorage within the independent artistic scene. Nevertheless, the amount of offers from the partners flowing towards the artists within the 2-year period is a little to low for them to really gain spin. Another shortcoming that should be addressed in the future, is to establish formats and opportunities to nourish the exchange and meeting between all chosen artists of the network.  

Residency at ICI-CCN:
The Creative Crossroad artists Günther Wilhelm and Mariola Gröner are on a residency at ICI-CCN Montpellier to work on their latest production "33 SKIZZEN".

The production is followed by a work-in-progress presentation on October 11 at 18:00 in Atelier Buffard at ICI-CCN. 

Report by Wilhelm & Gröner:

Our residency at the ICI Montpellier was the first work stay with one of the partners of the network »Life Long Burning«, to which we belong from 2019-2020 as artist duo WILHELM GROENER. This first residency within the network was a great start. Here it was confirmed in the most beautiful way how much one can profit in an artistic process from the generous working structures of an institution, if one breaks away from the usual structures and moves into new, unknown realms. Some fortunate circumstances came together here for us. The building, the location, the team, the studio, the city, the surroundings were always a joyful enrichment, inspiration and support. We were able to research and rehearse for our new performance »A.E« with the dancer Oliver Connew, who had just started his master's degree at the local Exerce Program, wich is located in the same building. Parallel we worked on a new edition for our long-standing performance project »33 SKIZZEN« which was presented to the audience at the end of our residency at 10 October 2019. «33 SKIZZEN» is an ongoing performance project which takes the spatial and contextual situation as a starting point. The Montpellier edition of «33 SKIZZEN – ici/hier» was on the one hand an interplay with the given working space during our residency at ICI. On the other hand it reflected the momentary research for our above mentioned new creation «A.E.» (premiere 6 Nov. at Veterinary Anatomy Theatre Berlin) which circumscribes scenarios of origin and visions of progress. Some echos of this research were evident in «33 SKIZZEN – ici/hier». The audience was free to explore different perspectives and became witness to the performers spatial, anatomical and acoustical explorations.

In summary, we can say that our residency at the ICI was a perfect start for the opportunities which »Life Long Burning« can offer for artistic processes.

PREMIERE "A.E. Anatomie.Evolution.Anfang.Ende. …"

"A.E. Anatomie.Evolution.Anfang.Ende. …" was premiered in the frame of the Berlin Science Week 2019 at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin on 6 November 2019.

View the evening sheet of “Anatomie. Evolution. Anfang. Ende…” in the Gallery below.