Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm

With Normal Dance, Antonia Baehr, who has been working as a choreographer for about fifteen years, will sign her first dance piece. ‘Normal Dance’is a dance trio that strives to integrate itself into the avant-garde of contemporary dance. She has invited two friends to dance who have much in common with her; Mirjam Junker and Pia Thilmann. Unlike Antonia Baehr; Pia Thilmann and Mirjam Junker do not habitually view contemporary stage dance, however the three of them do share the fact that their bodies are not trained for the type of activity usually required by it. The three of them are based in Berlin and share the embodiment of female masculinity: firm grips, grounded supports, strength, bigness. It’s a trio for three butches who are butches, but at the same time they are many other things. The dance is written based on the three performers’ corporality, morphology and motor functions. The music is a record-collection of contemporary experimental music by female composers spun live by Djane CC Emperatriz. The audience is invited to sit around the dance, in proximity to it.

The piece consists of moving bodies. Through proximity and distance to each other, they form relation. This makes a landscape. This makes a composition of geometrical forms; in lines, in diagonals, in parallels, in crosses, in triangles. The piece may be about this if it may and if you may or even if I may like it so. So then it may be about dance as a form of being together and apart, dance as a form of community. A trio is not a light fare: one plus one, one plus two, two plus one, one plus one plus one, and seldom three harmonically all together. At the end, three strong individuals share one limited space.

“You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don’t dance. So you might as well dance.” ― Gertrude Stein, Three Lives

Photos: Anja Weber