CIUPKE AND HAUF

CIUPKE AND HAUF

LIFE AND DEATH OF A MELODY (2019 + 2016)

Christina Ciupke & Boris Hauf

AUDIO VIDEO

In their third collaboration Christina Ciupke and Boris Hauf continue researching the link between sound and movement. Supported with lighting design by Emma Juliard the piece unfolds from microscopic sound and movement language to complex sculptures. The performance space is a vibrating three-dimensional body of sound, allowing the audience the experience proximity and distance on different levels of perception. In her movement research Christina Ciupke’s interest is drawn to details – such as a small shift of a joint resulting in an involuntary chain reaction and adjustment of other parts of the body. As it is taken by gravity, the swing of an arm is trapped and decelerates. Two-dimensional images, movement sketches and repetition develop into more spacious and dynamic structures. Boris Hauf sets the sound complementary to the movement interacting microscopic loops with elongated, nested phrases. Together they investigate the deconstruction of repetitions and loops after they have been visually and aurally established.

performance und musik: christina ciupke und boris hauf
licht und bühne: emma julliard
produktionsdramaturgie: barbara greiner
künstlerische mitarbeit: frank müller
produktionsdramaturgie: barbara greiner
produktion: christina ciupke, gefördert durch den regierenden bürgermeister von berlin, senatskanzlei – kulturelle angelegenheiten, mit freundlicher unterstützung der uferstudios

ASSEMBLING THE OBJECT OF DISCOMFORT (2016)

Christina Ciupke, Boris Hauf & Igor Dobricic

AUDIO  VIDEO

In this particular case, the movement and sound composition we were aiming toward was emerging from an ongoing critical investigation of a pleasure in an embodied experience of rhythm as well as the subversion of that pleasure. How is rhythm constructed on one hand and experienced on the other? What is a role of anticipation in shaping our sense of comfort and discomfort in an experience of rhythm?

In order to embody an answer to such an ambiguous set of questions we introduced a condition of a “dance on one leg”, consciously provoking a state of being on the edge, a state of controlled instability where unforeseen movements may occur at any moment in time because of an unexpected sudden loss of control which conveys a sense of freedom as well as constraint. For this state to be sustained it has to be negotiated continuously. On the way, the intentional structure of the movement-development is constantly disfigured and takes another turn. The sound composition at the same time builds up complex rhythmical structures. Within the layering subversive elements undermine the emerging composition of beats, deconstructing them before they fully develop.

The sound is represented and played from a record. The turntable is placed in the middle of a structural element of stairs, which divides the space and at the same time holds the possibility for the audience to be seated. The movement unfolds on a diagonal, which crosses the structural element where the audience is seated. The duration/time of the event is determined by the length of the record.

Performance, Sound, Light: Christina Ciupke, Igor Dobricic, Boris Hauf, Mehdi Toutain-Lopez
Technical Assistance: Emma Juliard 
Production Management/ PR: Barbara Greiner

A production by Christina Ciupke in coproduction with Tanzfabrik Berlin, supported by the Berlin Senate cultural affairs department and funded in the frame of  apap – Performing Europe 2016-2020, cofunded by Creative Europe Programme der EU.

WHAT MOVES MOVES

Christina Ciupke & Boris Hauf

AUDIO

We, who live in the world of reflected light, in visual space, may also be said to be in a state of hypnosis. Ever since the collapse of the oral tradition in early Greece, before the age of Parmenides, Western civilization has been mesmerized by a picture of the universe as a limited container in which all things are arranged according to the vanishing point, in a linear geometric order. The intensity of this conception is such that it actually leads to the abnormal suppression of hearing and touch in some individuals…. most of the information we rely upon comes through our eyes; our technology is arranged to heighten that effect: such is the power of Euclidean or visual space that we can’t live with a circle unless we square it. (Marshall McLuhan, Visual and Acoustic Space)

what moves moves is the second collaboration of musician/composer boris hauf and dancer/choreographer christina ciupke. the piece was premiered at the heizhaus of uferstudios berlin in december 2013.
“our dialogue for this piece started as a conversation about differences and similarities in the perception of aesthetics in dance and in music. using a space within a space we examine dynamics of sound and movement and attempt to balance the two media and their reception.“
a concrete physical object – a wooden hut (2m x 1,20m x 2m) with no windows – is located on a slight diagonal axis in the middle of the space. the audience enters into a relatively dark space. to perceive the hut from different perspectives, distances and on various sensual levels spectators are welcome to move freely in the space outside the hut. after they have settled the hut gradually develops a life of its own. visually impenetrable, the hut’s limited permeability allows only minimal perception of what is originating from inside it. barely perceptible noise, cracks and vibrations reveal the hut’s inner life.

after a while the outside space darkens increasingly and light penetrates the cracks of the wooden structure. nearing the hut eludes the overview of what is going on inside it, the gaze is drawn to the detail. observing from a distance complements the visual cutouts and allows insights as a whole. sound fragments and light movements inside the hut are perceived as physical dynamics and melody fragments can be heard in interstices of building and construction noise.

as performers, christina ciupke and boris hauf are alternately inside the hut and outside of the enclosed structure, in midst of the audience. the perception of interior and exterior space oscillates with the movement of sound, light and the dynamics between audience and performers. encounters, when they occur, are indirect and delicate. by repeatedly becoming permeable for the senses the apparently distinct demarcation of the hut conveys proximity and connectedness.

performance: christina ciupke and boris hauf
light: mehdi toutain-lopez
stage construction: bodo herrmann

costumes: nina kramer
production manager: barbara greiner
assistant: anne schuh
a production by christina ciupke supported by the berlin senate cultural affairs department