projects

Under green Ground (2005)

dance performance (length 75min): 1 dancer, 3 technicians

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The world as image and conception: In the age of the media there is no immediate self. Role models determine our identity and our thinking. However, the great multiplicity of potential roles also creates a new, special kind of liberty. Together with her choreographic partner and dancer Alexandra Naudet, the Cologne choreographer and media artist Stephanie Thiersch explores the complicated interaction of idea and flesh; of image-memory and the female body. A test arrangement for which she finds breathtaking, very concrete visual transformations; enigmatic, slightly morbid and provocative like a fashion shoot or a film by David Lynch.

No matter whether Alexandra Naudet as Botticelli´s Venus; as the naked woman in Manet´s “Breakfast in the Open Air”; or as a porn queen – her fantastic presence and charisma gives the subversive game with identity just as much depth as down-to earth quality. As an ironic effect, her various personas are interrupted by a persistently pottering technical crew. Especially the stage manageress emerges as a threatening competition for the main actress – right up to the showdown, with sparks flying.

Trailer:
Under green Ground

cast:

concept/choreography: Stephanie Thiersch, choreography/dance: Alexandra Naudet, technical direction: Ansgar Kluge, stage management/dance: Agustina Sario, light technician: Thomas Grzegorcyzk, dramaturgical assistance: Andrea Heller, lightning/stage design: Ansgar Kluge, Stephanie Thiersch, production management: Christine Florack.

credits:

Co-production: tanzhaus nrw, in cooperation with koelnertanzagentur e.V., funded by the Ministry of Urban Development, Sports and Culture NRW, Kulturamt Stadt Köln and SK Stiftung Kultur Köln.

press:

Stephanie Thiersch builds up figures in slow motion; one outgrows another, and
dismantles the beautiful facade until there is nothing left except for a silent cry. The icon
collapses back upon herself – ecce homo. Naudet interprets fiercely cut female images in
close-up view with great intensity.
(Bettina Trouwborst, ballettanz international)

… an equally intelligent and sensuous production… A panopticum of female self-staging
as if it was an eerie-pretty men's dream.
(Nicole Strecker, Kölnische Rundschau)

In her choreography, Stephanie Thiersch virtuously plays with the tension between
identity and public woman… And the pick of the bunch: Alexandra Naudet keeps all of it
together: the female, the images, her dynamics and sex.
(Basil Nikitakis, Kölner Stadtanzeiger)

Thiersch succeeds a contemporary surrealism, which drives its motives with force and
easiness through a neo-punk world of scenes. …Alexandra Naudet seizes the
choreography in a terrific manner through a tenacious debate with the images that she
actuates.
(Gesa Pölert, tanzjournal)