A cooperation between the BA Dance at the Center for Contemporary Dance (ZZT) at the Cologne University of Music and Dance and the CircusDanceFestival Cologne

Contemporary circus and dance are physical practices that influence and inspire each other in artistic dialog. While both disciplines have physical training, body awareness and presence in common, they also open up different perspectives in dealing with space, objects, risk, rhythm, musicality as well as improvisation and choreographic processes.
With Circus Dance Practices #1, the ZZT Cologne, in cooperation with the CircusDanceFestival, is initiating an artistic practice research lasting several weeks: an internationally working circus artist is invited to research questions between technique and intuition, between choreographic setting and improvisational openness in a practice-oriented way together with students of the BA Dance. The focus is on physical research, experimental working methods and the joint testing of laboratory, creation and improvisation tools. How does artistic material emerge from the coexistence and juxtaposition of dance and circus? How does practice become body knowledge - and body knowledge become practice again?

This year, the French juggler and performer Guillaume Martinet from the Compagnie DeFracto has been invited to share his artistic practice with the students. In intensive practical laboratory sessions, he will introduce students to the company's working method, in which juggling is understood as a physical relationship to the object and oscillates between technical precision and playful letting go. Through object- and body-related movement principles, the variation of rhythm, dynamics and space as well as improvisational tasks, a common research space between dance and object manipulation is created. Technical exercises, improvisation and compositional approaches intertwine and enable students to develop new movement qualities in the interplay of body and object and to gain insights into the creative processes of DeFracto.

Saturday, 23.5. 15 - 15:30

• Open Session: Circus Dance Practices #1
  As part of the campus project Circus Dance Practices #1, students of the BA Dance at the Center for Contemporary Dance (ZZT) will give a performative insight into their joint work phase with the invited juggler Guillaume Martinet of the Compagnie DeFracto. The session opens a window into the artistic research process between contemporary dance and juggling: movement material, rhythmic structures and the relationship between body and object can be experienced in a compact show and make the physical practice and working methods of the project visible.