Photo by Ian Douglas
WaterWaltz Review - Richard Pettifer
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
WaterWaltz
It's a sunny Sunday in Pankow, Berlin's dreariest suburb. I fix a salad, fill a bottle with water, and go down to my bike. I stop by a Schrebergarten - one of Germany's famous allotment gardens, which I am lucky enough to share with colleagues at the end of my street - and pick up a towel, a lying-cushion, and a panama hat I find lying around. Time to get healthy by the lake!
Coming in to Berlin's Weißer See lake - the largest in Berlin-Weißensee and approximately in the centre of that district - many Berliners seem to have had the same idea. The lake reeks with population, people half naked or more lounging around, the beach cafe (entry 4 EUR) with its Hollywood-parody sign and giant letters looming over the water, giving everything a feeling like it's the 1970s. Not to mention the golden September light, which makes everything look sepia-toned, like it's from an old family polaroid.
I find the area between the Milchhäuschen cafe and the Boat rental, find my place, and sit down on the cushion, waiting for the show to begin.
WaterWaltz is a performative cycle that began in 2022 in Krumme Lanke, a lake in south-west Berlin, and has since moved around many of Berlin's favourites water-holes, including Tegeler See and Müggelsee. These are all popular places for Berlin-style summer recreation, where a motley crew of last night's revellers, families, and weirdos gather to soak up the sun and the sand, in a sort of mildly disappointing version of a beach. WaterWaltz re-appropriates these places as site-specific locations for dance via an innovative invisible floating mat, which makes the dancers look like they are dancing literally on top of the water, carefully steered by invisible ropes as the crowd watches on - or simply integrates the magical dancing figure into their everyday recreational activities.
Photo: Dusan Sekulovic
The spectacle of seeing a dancer-on-water against a backdrop of passers by does not lose it's magic over the 3-hour duration of WaterWaltz, which repeats it's cycle every hour. It's worth the free entry price just for this: during the performance I saw, a visitor and her dog amusingly entered the stage while talking loudly in Italian on a wireless headset, apparently oblivious to the audience before them.
But WaterWaltz is also a carefully-assembled choreography. A trio of dancers (Ann Francis Ang, Magdalena Hanna Negowska, and Alexandre May) follow each other with a different style of contemporized waltz - obeying the triple-time synonymous with waltz, but otherwise free of classical trimmings and resembling something like free dance to an inaudible soundtrack. Each dancer performs a solo, clad in a different hot colour covered in fringe (costumes: Lara Duymus), perhaps representing the seasons, or simply sticking out from the lush green backdrop. First is the red-clad May, who offers energized, light splashes, knees high, the body partnering with the floating mat and taking its rhythms from nature, as thought singing out in celebration of it.
Ann Francis Ang's yellow-clad figure is a more gentle, precise relationship with stage and space, pushing the space around and drifting between different held forms. The dancer splays their arms in occasional bursts, reaching out from a strong central base, connected with the stage and soaking up its instability.
Magdalena Hanna Negowska's orange figure seems attached to the floor, connecting between the stage and the water by half-lying on both. The dancer utilises the low position through rolls and occasional presented poses, finally rising into three-step spins that seem ballet-inspired.
Photo: Dusan Sekulovic
As Ang and May return, forming a trio of cascading movements that utilise different levels and especially the arms, the cycle neatly returns to the beginning, leaving May to open. WaterWaltz offers a unique and well-thought-out staging concept: not only does the stage move out of its cumbersome architectures, but here, the dynamics of space are profoundly listened-to and interacted-with, and not merely decorative. The result is a unique style of movement born from situation, and as well, a beautiful invitation to guests that rewards attention while not demanding anything beyond a relaxed co-existence, much like the dancers themselves inside their natural surrounds.
Video
Gibney Work Up 6.2 2020
Shared bill performance featuring Sekulovic alongside Kalliope+Symara and Wendell Gray II
Movement Research at the Judson Church
Choreography and Performance: Ramona Sekulovic
Dramaturgy: Nele Ana Riepl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHuhToBvT2M
Interview
Austin Dance Festival Interview 2018
Reviews
The Dance Enthusiast - Untitled No. 1
http://www.dance-enthusiast.com/get-involved/reviews/view/Ramona-Sekulovic-in-Untitled-1-May-30-2017
Ramona Sekulovic’s new work, “Untitled #1,” is an astonishing achievement. Set to Philip Glass’s Piano Etude No. 12, and performed in a series of dance showcases including “Crossing Boundaries” at Dixon Place (May 30, 2017) and “White Wave Solo/Duo Festival,” also at Dixon Place (June 25, 2017), the piece features an uncanny series of movements – a percussive back-and-forth of a single leg and arm (alternating from one side to the other), repeating and evolving in conversation with the music. The rhythmic oscillation was mesmerizing, conveying uncanny sense of simultaneous control and lack of control; Sekulovic gave the impression of being on one hand a puppet pulled by someone else’s strings, while on the other hand meticulously in charge of every movement. The tension between this apparent surrender and the underlying precision gave the performance an electric charge that lingered for long after the show had ended. It was a pleasure to be able to watch the piece again, a month later, framed by a different set of performances, and to re-experience this sensation of transport while observing changes and expansions to the piece. These performances mark Sekulovic’s return to performance after a hiatus, and this piece – which is still developing and will be appearing again in expanded forms – shows that she is one to watch.
Tanya Pollard
Columbia Spectator - WITH DARING AND GRACE, DANCENOW DOWNTOWN KICKS OFF AND SOARS
Other exciting works included A Knitter's Tale, Unraveled, choreographed and performed by Suzanne Blezard, a refreshingly original piece in which Blezard dances out the motions of crocheting. In Woman--A Study--Phase 1, choreographed by Ramona Ganssloser and performed by Ganssloser, Sara Grundman, and Hiromi Niwa, Ganssloser criticizes the pressures placed on women to conform to social pressures. Dancers first act out their torture as voice-overs speak of the need to be beautiful, then move as if crying out for attention. Freefall, choreographed and performed by Lynn Brown, Lynn Marie Ruse, and O'Connor, involves a fight-like routine, which emphasizes the dancers' outstanding strength. Love Particles, choreographed by Tami Stronach and performed by Stronach, Maria Earle, Stacey Hart, and Nam Holtz, combines dance routines with an intelligent scene about a young girl's romantic fantasy. The performance concluded with Kandinsky, choreographed by Erica Essner and performed by Leyya Tawil and Deborah Miller, a flowing and elegant work in which dancers lift, twirl, and extend in perfect grace and loving harmony.
Emily Fishman
Listings
The Danceview Times, New York Edition - A2Z
http://danceviewtimes.com/dvny/backissues/2004/051004.htm
NY Times Classic Music and Dance Guide - Sunken Garden
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/22/movies/classical-music-and-dance-guide.html?pagewanted=3
NY Times Classic Music and Dance Guide - Mostly Solos
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/movies/classical-music-and-dance-guide.html?pagewanted=all
Yale Repertory Theatre
https://issuu.com/yalerep/docs/ysd-caucasian-chalk-circle-2000
Yale Bulletin, 'The Skriker' to inaugurate Drama School's new theater space
http://archives.news.yale.edu/v29.n6/story7.html
Kulturdatenbank - Jahre der Einsamkeit
http://www.theaterdesaugenblicks.net/cgi-bin/page.pl?id=270;lang=de