Introducing: Ania Nowak / Anna Aristarkhova:
Don't go for Second Best, Baby! / Obnimashki

ANIA NOWAK

DON'T GO FOR SECOND BEST, BABY!

Don’t Go for Second Best, Baby is a choreography of support and emergence. Backup dancing is about bodies exercising their relation to the center, to one another and to choreography understood as a shared, spontaneous plan. This dance is made collectively out of many intersecting monologues yet its principle is accompaniment.  What does it mean to accompany when the center is missing? How do we practice companionship through dance or take care of another person’s dance? This work approaches improvisation as a strategy of resistance against the politics of command and hierarchies. Bodies moving in the background insist on dance’s ability to create formats of being and thinking which extend beyond the periphery.

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ANNA ARISTARKHOVA

OBNIMASHKI

A hug is a daily mutual choreography with many uncertainties. Five performers throw themselves into various forms of hugs which don’t always mean what was intended.

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DON'T GO FOR SECOND BEST, BABY!

CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY Ania Nowak DANCE, ARTISTIC ASSISTANCE Julek Kreutzer, Julia Plawgo DRAMATURGICAL ASSISTANCE Mateusz Szymanówka, Julia Rodriguez LIGHT Lukasz Kædzierki, Cathy Walsh COSTUME Melanie Jame Wolf REMIX Jayson Patterson

A production by Ania Nowak. Funded by the Senatsverwaltung fur Kultur und Europa. Kindly supported by the Polish Institute Berlin and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Thanks to HZT Berlin. Media partner: taz.die tageszeitung

The first version of the piece was produced by Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk in the frame of Solo Projekt Plus 2016. Artistic coaching: Bush Hartshorn.

Photo 2 Don't Go fo Second Best, Baby © Jakub Wittchen

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OBNIMASHKI

CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY Anna Aristarkhova DEVELOPMENT, PERFORMANCE Lulu Obermayer, Anna Fingerhuth, Simone Gisela Weber, Yuya Fujinami, Jan Rozman MUSIC Ferdinand Breil, Metropolis, Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper von Dream Theatre (edited by Ferdinand Breil), Sonata Al Santo Sepolcro: II. Allegro ma poco von Antonio Vivaldi, Silhouette von Kenny G, Love Scene Version 6 von Pink Floyd DRAMATURGY Sandra Umathum & Jan Willem Dreier COSTUME Anna Philippa Müller, Lee Meir LIGHT DESIGN Gretchen Blegen PHOTO, VIDEO, MUSE Philipp Weinrich

In co-production with HZT Berlin, Uferstudios GmbH / Life Long Burning Kulturprogramm der Europäischen Union and SOPHIENSAELE. Funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa. Support by the Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. OBNIMASHKI is part of the Master Thesis by Anna Aristarkhova, Major in Choreography at HZT Berlin. Media partner: taz.die tageszeitung

Photo 1 Obnimashki © Philipp Weinrich