ANGELA
SCHUBOT
BROTHERS
“brothers” is a performance by Angela Schubot and Robert Steijn in which they move through different altered states of mind and body. From a conventional perspective, ‘brothers’ could be seen as a dance in limbo, it is all about taking time and having an attention for details. From an ecological view, ‘brothers’ could, however, be a meditative event, in which the dancing body loses slowly the distinction between inside and outside. “brothers” deals with the uncultivated und untamed in and around us. For Schubot and Steijn “When the forest starts to speak in us, we lose our idea of what it is to be human. Voices do not refer any longer to the domain of logic and language. Emotions get the status of a daily weather report. Thoughts become monuments of resistance. One question remains: can we stay brothers in the eye of the hurricane, can we stay in dialogue with each other when life reveals the beauty of its unmasked face.”
Concept, Choreography, Performance: Angela Schubot, Robert Steijn
Sound: Robin Meier, Angela Schubot, Robert Steijn Lightning Design: Annegret Schalke
Assistance Lightning/Technique: Gretchen Blegen Artistic Advise: Sigal Zouk
Press & Production: björn & björn
Production: Angela Schubot
Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Schwankhalle Bremen
Supported by Der Regierenden Bürgermeister von Berlin - Senatskanzlei - Kulturelle Angelegenheiten und dem Fonds Darstellende Künste.
Premiere 2 February 2017
We are there, very close to the podium with the monochrome purple frayed Persian carpet, the two figures sunk in deep sensibility, the woven light; But we're not there either, we're being meditated away. Dear audience, I love you, but I´ve chosen meditation. No problem, it would not be bearable otherwise, no, it would not even be happening how the bodies of two people - one marked as a fragile, young woman the other as an aged man - give what they are not able to give each other. Two voluntarily strayed, which set their being marked still-lively as the last trace, then descended, flow out: ghostly pale bodies, that are dragged by the swarming consciousness in a starless night like the termites drag their food. If we ever are there as well—at this level of somatic inversion,
Four point Five: Writing on Dance
Where do we exist? In the experience of a physical sensation? Or in the question who is experiencing the physical sensation? In brothers, we see both approaches, in different tasks to be on the little stage. Angela dives into her inner world of inner experiences, developing an inward eye. Robert stays in the observing mood, almost objectively, developing an outward eye. Angela moves on the organic flow of expanding, contracting. Robert deliberately moves from a calmness within, his body restricted as an executor of his intentions.
What they share, is the devotion to the moment. The listening how the moment of being present in front of an audience purifies itself in a range of split-seconds, and even smaller than that. And they share the curiosity in how their different relationships towards their body can coexist in a small space together. There is the vibration of love, friendship and respect between their bodies. Creating a safe space for both to flourish in the own way of being.
Both are on a quest. A quest to expand who they think they are. To expand what they think is being human. To learn what happens when we listen to our body or our mind, without forcing it to aim for something.
That's what we are aiming for, can we disappear in the act of losing ourselves in the inner flows of the body, or in the inner silence of the mind, can we communicate with an audience when we as performers redraw ourselves towards the same position as the audience; a witness of two moving and fully present bodies.
(text by Robert Steijn)
