Text: Christine Matschke
Irina Demina initiates a pioneering Pas de deux in collaboration with David Samu. Entitled “KLOF”, this project brings together a choreographer with experience in folklore and an experienced computer scientist in exploring the possibilities for cooperation between human and nonhuman bodies in the context of dance. In the performance “KLOF. Cyberographies of folk”, a dancer enters into dialogue with an interactive artificial intelligence that is capable of choreograph ing dozens of synthetic folk dances. If folk dances suggest how societies are traditionally organized, then what kinds of togetherness does a recomposition of familiar dance vocabulary have to offer? Can we transform the deeply ingrained bodily practices and often hierarchical (gender) relations associated with folk dances into more liberated forms of communality? On the heels of “AcT II” (2020) and “Perpetual Myth” (2021), Irina Demina’s interest in technology and tradition is continued with this work.