“Paths are created by walking them”. (Franz Kafka).

Scenic dance miniatures by Barbara Fuchs, Ilona Pászthy and Suna Göncü.

VIA is the first result of the Barnes Bridge project series of the Barnes Crossing choreographers’ network. The choreographers Barbara Fuchs, Ilona Pászthy and Suna Göncü embark on their individual search for different layers of walking. The idea of the Barnes Bridge project is to invite artists from other disciplines to work on a common theme on an equal footing with the choreographers. This time the artist Ruth Prangen could be won for the stage design and the electronic scenography.

The three scenic dance miniatures thus created illuminate the spectrum from physis to metaphysis of the path in a very personal way.

VIA I, a dance miniature by Barbara Fuchs, illuminates the physis of the path. A metaphorical feat of strength of a being that is making its way and encounters an obstacle.

Premiere 12.05.07 as part of the festival Tanz NRW 07 at the Studiobühne Cologne.

 

TEAM

Choreography & Dance: Barbara Fuchs
Stage: Ruth Prangen
Music: Markus Reyhani
Costumes: Sabine Kreiter
Light: Jürgen Kapitein
Dramaturgy: Koni Hanft
Production Management: Gustavo Fijalkow

Photo: Jürgen Laubhold

A production from Barnes Crossing Choreographer-Network 

Supported by Ministerpräsidenten des Landes Nordrhein Westfalen, Kunststiftung NRW, SK Stiftung Kultur Förderprogramm, Koehler Papier Group

Press-Quotes

NICOLE STRECKER, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger 13.05.07

Switched on at last
Between the familiar and the new, many pleasant things happened in Cologne.

“I’m kind of on standby,” murmurs a dancer in Parisa Karimi’s dance film “Zwischenwelten”. Cologne’s independent dance scene also feels like it’s on “standby” again and again. And finally the city has “switched on” and given its busy scene a festival: “Tanz NRW 07” was actually a cooperation with six other cities, but Cologne took a special route and created its festival within the festival. Event followed event, one squeezed into sold-out venues, encountered the familiar and the completely new.

Take “Via”, for example. The choreographers’ collective Barnes Crossing had been quiet recently, but “Via” showed that they had quietly developed further, in some cases considerably. At the start of the three-part production, Barbara Fuchs smoked across the stage as if various insects had entered into a symbiosis in her body – a feat of strength that she celebrated with incredible brilliance. With Ilona Pászthy, the effort continued in a completely different way: with her, one falls into a nightmare: running, running, running – and yet never moving from the spot. Her arms row, her upper body is tense, but her legs stick to the floor as if paralysed.

PIECE 2307,5 is the final production of a trilogy which meets with a film genre in dance. The first part The Dance Crime, is a dance thriller deals with the murderous addiction to dance. The second part EXITUS, is a satire of a horror film about the dancer’s death. The third part is a design of a dance utopia.

The premiere of “2307,5” took place on 3. November 2006 at the Orangerie Theatre in Cologne.

TEAM

Concept and Idea: Barbara Fuchs
Choreography and Dance: Erika Winkler and Barbara Fuchs
Music: Ritzenhoff
Video, Light: Horst Mühlberger
Stage, Light: Marco Wehrspann
Costumes: Sabine Kreiter
Supervision: Carla de Andrade Hurst
Dramaturgy: Odile Foehl

Photo: Lucia Lommel

Co-production: Barnes Crossing | Choreographers Network and Consol Theater, Gelsenkirchen

Press quotes:

Nicole Strecker, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 07.11.2006

[…] Universe, space. We’re at stardate 2307.5 – and let’s see what the dance is all about at this point: Two creatures lie on the ground, a strip of light passes over them like a radar screen or a photocopier. When the two creatures signal life, they do so with the reduction of two unicellular organisms. In fact, “piece 2307.5”, the new choreography by Barbara Fuchs, is like looking into a microscope over long distances. Two strikingly long bodies that gently slide across the floor until they come to rest on top of each other. When they perform more complex movements, they always somehow get it wrong: joints shift in irritating directions, elbows grow out between the backs of the knees – the whole body seems to be wrongly constructed. Barbara Fuchs herself and the impressive dancer Erika Winkler crawl around as futuristic bodies in this dance science fiction. Marco Wehrspann’s light creates fantastic moods: sometimes a green-blue wafting as if on the ocean floor, sometimes bright red laser structures that only show the outlines of the bodies. Constant metamorphoses in a precisely timed dance installation in which high-tech, nature and science combine in a very peculiar way. […]

Christina Grolmuss, CRITIC CAMPUS WEB 05.11.2006

Ouantenphysik – abstract and innovative brought on stage

TanzKonkret promises a journey through the galaxies in the Orangery

“With “Stück 2307,5 – eine Tanz-Fiktion” ends a remarkable trilogy that deals with the fusion of dance and film genres. This dance utopia, created by director and dancer Barbara Fuchs, is about the arduous journey of two subatomic particles that have to assert themselves against gigantic gravitational waves and quivering ion storms in the endless tangle of the universe. They have to endure agonizing light years of danger until they find the long awaited way out in a narrow subspace tunnel.”

EXITUS, a production by Barbara Fuchs, this time in collaboration with the dancer and choreographer Koni Hanft, is an irreverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil and a visual audio-dance piece. Worlds and stories emerge from song and dance, images and dialogue, music and voices that take us on a hellish suicide mission.
The premiere of “EXITUS” took place on 28.10.2005 as part of the Tanzhautnah series at the Bürgerhaus Stollwerck.

TEAM

Concept & Idea: Barbara Fuchs

Dance/ Choreography: Koni Hanft and Barbara Fuchs

Dramaturgy/ Video: Carla de Andrade Hurst

Video/ Stage: Marco Wehrspann

Costumes: Sabine Kreiter

Photo: Wolfgang Weimer

Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne, Kunststiftung NRW, SK Stiftung Kultur, tanzhautnah and kölner tanzagentur.

 

Press-Quotes

THOMAS LINDEN, Kölnische Rundschau 08.11.05
Dance carried to its grave Witty “Exitus” by Barbara Fuchs

“Exitus” is the name Barbara Fuchs gives to her new production, which she presented with colleague Koni Hanft at the Stollwerck. The subtitle speaks of a “reverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil”. Indeed an amusing affair, the funeral of dance. In view of the chronically poor production conditions in Cologne’s independent dance scene, the subject is basically always topical. Barbara Fuchs and Koni Hanft, however, do not speculate so much on the local malaise, but rather focus on the physical and psychological drudgery of the art of dance. Barbara Fuchs turns the tables, mocking the dancers’ masochism.




NICOLE STRECKER, Kölner Stadtanzeiger 01.11.05

The death of dance […]

Then the great performer Barbara Fuchs lets her limbs flap as a zombie and shows herself with deliberately dilettantish ballet quotations as a puppet of her insatiable urge to move. As in her previous solo pieces, the Cologne choreographer also plays imaginatively with the clichés of dance martyrdom in her new production, a duo with Koni Hanft for the series tanzhautnah, and combines such narcissism with a popular genre. […]


Reference to TV programme:
WDR 3, west.art on Sunday, 20.11. at 11:00 a.m. Live from the WDR foyer:

“No good death, no good life” In our society, which is fixated on youthfulness, we like to fade out the topic of dying and death. However, contrary developments can be observed in recent times. The hospice movement, funeral directors and doctors are looking for new ways to deal with death. It almost seems as if we no longer want to close our eyes to the many facets of dying. In art, death has always had its place as part of life anyway. The Grim Reaper has even found his way into cabaret. Should we perhaps laugh about death more often? Do we need a different culture of mourning? west.art am sonntag takes one of the last taboos as its theme.
As an event tip, the dance theatre: “EXITUS a reverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil” is recommended.



Nicole Strecker Barbara Fuchs dances the “Exitus”

“Exitus. An irreverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil” is the name of the production she created together with choreographer Koni Hanft, in which she lets her limbs flap either as a floater or a zombie with hanging hair and sadly distorted facial expressions.

[…] the horror in the new play has a meta-level. >Exitus< also tells of the mystification of dance, which is almost something like a religion in the scene. As a ballet Elevin, your feet have to bleed, you have to endure every pain, everything for the dance,” Barbara Fuchs rants.

 

The accomplices kept in the background.
The victim lay motionless and exhausted on the floor.
“And besides, everything had happened so fast,” the witnesses reported.
Some turned away, shaking their heads uncomprehendingly. Others tried to understand what had happened and what the perpetrator had thought?
She had obviously enjoyed it and was already planning the next act. A bizarre view of dance. Situated between poetry, comedy and autopsy.

The premiere of “tanztat” took place on November 13, 2004 in the series tanzhautnah at the Bürgerhaus Stollwerck, Cologne.

“tanztat” was awarded the Cologne Dance Theater Prize 2004. “The solo of Barbara Fuchs is characterized by the original and perfectly combined genre mix of danced thriller and persiflage,” was the jury’s verdict.
In addition, “tanztat” was selected for tanzstrasse 2005 by a jury of experts. This will enable three outstanding NRW artists to present their productions in the cities of Bonn, Düsseldorf, Krefeld and Cologne. And nominated for the festival Theaterzwang in 2006.

 

TEAM

Idea/Choreography/Dance: Barbara Fuchs
Light/Stage/Video: Marco Wehrspann
Dramaturgy: Carla de Andrade Hurst
Supervision : Koni Hanft
Costume : Sabine Kreiter
Photo : Jürgen Laubhold

Supported by the Kulturamt der Stadt Köln, the Kunststiftung NRW, the SK Stiftung Kultur, tanzhautnah and the kölner tanzagentur.

 

Press-Quotes

Audience as accomplice
Barbara Fuchs acts amazingly as choreographer, dancer and actress.
BY ISABELL STEINBÖCK, 17.11.04 Kölner Stadt Anzeiger

It is an astonishing performance that Fuchs achieves here as choreographer, dancer and actress.
accomplishes here. In her unusual humorous-grotesque solo piece, the artist embodies all the characters that are needed.
In her unusual humorous and grotesque solo piece, the artist embodies all the characters needed to give form to a thriller – and pulls out all the stops of her extensive repertoire of ideas. Chases are depicted with shadow and finger play, detective inspector and pathologist come on stage in pantomime, the audience is declared accomplices. The use of a video camera allows close-ups of the feet as tools of the crime and the depiction of the gasping victim’s face. In between, Barbara Fuchs repeatedly shows herself as a dancer with technique, mimic talent and comic self-irony.
One believes Barbara Fuchs when she claims she can’t help but dance. Good one would like to say, otherwise we would have missed out on a lot.