Christine Matschke
It’s long been warmly anticipated by audiences: Antonia Baehr’s radiant laughter during the applause. The choreographer, who otherwise relies on a subtle sense of humour, brought the laughter to the stage in 2009 in a concertante solo for laughing voice and body. She continues her interest in this multifaceted research topic with the current edition of the OPEN SPACES festival, which this year will again also be a guest at radialsystem. Choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni complements Antonia Baehr’s laugh-study and in “Augusto” gets to the bottom of the less pleasant varieties of human feelings with laughter as the only means of artistic expression. Further highlights in the program: a premiere by Martin Hansen, who uses the personal legacy items of a woman unknown to him as an occasion to reflect on the supposed attribution and appropriation of identity; an installation by Gérald Kurdian entitled “The Many Lives of Tarek X” in the newly inaugurated Heizhaus at Uferstudios; a performance by Gerard Reyes that embodies sex as a pleasurable cultural practice; and works by Corbusier & Felix M. Ott, Lina Gómez, Karol Tyminski and Nir Vidan.