
Isabel Lewis and I attended the Choreographic Platform Austria 2009 in Graz a few weeks ago in order to see Austrian work for an exchange we are curating in New York this coming June. We were impressed by the platform, mostly because of the predominantly experimental work that was shown. The contemporary dance scene in Austria is relatively young and a lot of the interesting activity can be credited to Sigrid Gareis’s artistic directorship at TanzQuartier Wien. Gareis is sadly leaving the organization in the Spring and will be missed.
Corpus, an Austrian online publication for dance and performance, hosted the “The Zimmer.” It was essentially a hotel room at the Hotel Europa in Graz for people to hang out in every night after the performances at the platform. It became a place for discussion, dancing and hanging out. The living room area gravitated towards conversation and the bedroom more towards dancing (with music on a very low volume in order to not disturb the neighbors). The bed added for an extra outlet for creative energy. At some point a second dance area emerged in the hallway/closet area. I was pleased.
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