Activity - Antonia Baehr, A Selection from Abecedarium Bestiarium. Portraits of affinities in animal metaphors | MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona

Wednesday, 28 April 2021

In A Selection from Abecedarium Bestiarium. Portraits of affinities in animal metaphors, the Berlin-based choreographer Antonia Baehr has invited her friends to write short pieces for her, based on an ABC of extinct animals: D is for Dodo, T is for Tasmanian tiger, S is for Steller’s sea cow, etc. The authors choose an extinct animal that they feel strongly about. This brings about heterogenous choreographic miniatures in which they reflect on their respective affinity for the chosen animal, as well as their friendship with Antonia Baehr.

The performance it's in English, French, German and Spanish.

Overall concept, production and performance: Antonia Baehr.
Compositions: Frédéric Bigot (Electronicat), Pauline Boudry, Valérie Castan, Lucile Desamory, Vinciane Despret, Sabine Ercklentz, Dodo Heidenreich, Christian Kesten, Keren Ida Nathan (Ida Wilde), Andrea Neumann, Stefan Pente, Isabell Spengler, Steffi Weismann o William Wheeler, among others.
Artistic collaboration: Valérie Castan.
Lighting design: Sylvie Garot.
Lighting direction: Luc Jenny.
Sound: Manuel Coursin, Eric Yvelin.
Sound direction: Carola Caggiano.
Costumes: Patty Eggerickx, Steffi Weismann, Pauline Boudry, Renate Lorenz and Werner Hirsch.
Production: Alexandra Wellensiek.
Production assistance: Sarah Blumenfeld and Barbara Greiner.
Translations: Guillaume Cailleau, Sabine Macher and William Wheeler.
Subtitles and video calibration: Guillaume Cailleau and Hanna Slak.
Assistance: Elisabeth Leopold.
Video recording: Angela Anderson.

Production: make up productions (Berlin).
Co-production: Centre chorégraphique national de Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon – in the framework of the Jardin d’Europe project, with support from the European Commission and ]domaines[ (Montpellier), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), PACT Zollverein (Essen), steirischer herbst (Graz), Tanzquartier (Vienna), Les Subsistances (Lyon). This project is co-produced by NXTSTP, with support from the Culture Programme of the European Union.

Thanks go to: Lindy Annis, Bettina von Arnim, ausland, Ulrich Baehr, Sarah Bahr, Silke Bake, Frédéric Borrotzu, Uli Ertl, Walton Ford, Elisabeth Freeman, Andreas Harder, Nanna Heidenreich, La Ribot, Ulrike Melzwig, Wolfgang Müller, Conrad Noack, François Noudelman, Alain Roux, Pauline Schroeder-Baehr, Marlène Shaw, Christiane & Arnulf Spengler i Gertrude Stein.
Special thanks to: Beursschouwburg, Brussel·les.

Antonia Baehr. Next to choreographic elements, Antonia Baehr is interested in rules and the laws which a society (and in particular the space in a theatre) assigns to bodies, to make them recognizable and comprehensible. She is a performer, a filmmaker and a visual artist, and as a choreographer she searches in everyday fiction and theatre, working at the edges of that which defines us as human beings—placing us via a voluptuous see-saw in critical positions. She is interested in the opposition between humans and animals, but also in elements in representational space. In her work she interacts with, among others, Neo Hülcker, Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Andrea Neumann, Latifa Laâbissi, William Wheeler and Valérie Castan, and with others who are interested in the changing of roles: from project to project, each artist is alternately the host or the guest. Baehr is also the producer for the horse whisperer and dancer Werner Hirsch, the musician and choreographer Henri Fleur, the composer Henry Wilt and the emerging composer of contemporary music (and her ex-husband) Henry Wilde.

With the support of

^{The performance at MACBA Barcelona is supported by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ International Guest Performance Fund for Dance, which is funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.}