Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt + Matthias Meppelink :
Schützen

Every morning before they start work, the US Nevada Control Station’s drone pilots meet for a yoga session. And before they return to their normal lives in the evenings, half an hour of collective meditation helps them let go of the “battle mind” that they need for war. These are strategies designed to protect those involved in modern warfare – mentally if not physically – from overload.
In READY, AIM, the first part of Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt’s long-term study Schützen, the Danish performance artist examines athletic and strategic aspects of physical preparation for use of weapons and combat. The second part of the trilogy, FIRE, focuses on the act of shooting and the delegation of killing. In Ullerup Schmidt’s choreography, Berlin youths aim at the audience with budgerigars. Is institutionalized killing a private or social event? The last part, RELEASE, is based on interviews that Ullerup Schmidt carried out in summer 2012 with former soldiers from the Israeli army. Phantom memories are evoked of a life with a weapon as a kind of prosthesis.
The word “Schützen” in German has an etymological double meaning. On one hand, it means someone who shoots, yet on the other, it means to shield, protect or prevent. Using the act of "protection" and its masculine connotations as a starting point, in her first solo project Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt questions the effect on the body of handling a weapon.

Trailer

Choreography, Performance Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt Music, Light Matthias Meppelink
 with among others Dorit Tzoref-Ashkanazi, Roni Katz, Eran Krivine arttictic assistance Milena Kipfmüller Assistance Katharina Malong
 DRAWER Marie-Louise Andersson

A co-production of Berliner Festspiele / Foreign Affairs, Tanztage Berlin and SOPHIENSÆLE. Funded by the The Danish Arts Foundation and the Governing Mayor of Berlin - Senatskanzlei - Kulturelle Angelegenheiten.

Thanks to Berliner Schützengesellschaft von 1882 and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde. Vierte Welt, Amir Yagel, Zirat Machol Jerusalem, Tmu-na Theatre Tel Aviv, Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin (HZT), Benita Bandow, Slagteriskolen Roskilde, ACME für Zoopa 150 Helis, Oliver Schubbe, Rose Beermann, Manuel Gerst, Andreas Liebmann.

photo © Stine Marie Jacobsen