General Humanity Lab 3: ANIMAL ANCESTOR

Closing event of blurred edges 2020, Bühne zum Hof, Goldbekhaus, Hamburg, 29.10.2020, 20h

From the scene “humanimal”: Ingrid Hoelzl: Performance, Voice; Georgia Hoppe: Althorn. Photo: Gunnar Lettow

Ingrid Hoelzl – Direction, Libretto Remi Marie – Dramaturgy/Poetry Georgia Ch. Hoppe – Loop-Composition

Performers: Bianca Hein (Tai Ji/Qi Gong/Voice) Ingrid Hoelzl (Clarinet, Voice, Movement) Georgia Ch. Hoppe (Reeds, E-Guitar) Emese Kovács (Video-dance) Chad Charles Popple (Percussion)

Technical Lead: Sascha Hahnrath

Admin: Peter Rauterberg, Goldbekhaus Photography: Peter Rauterberg, Gunnar Lettow

Materials used with friendly permission: Jean C. Roche / Birds of Venezuela Adam Krasz / Cancer Maya Deren / Divine Horsemen Franz Kafka / Der Bau; Die Verwandlung

ANIMAL ANCESTOR / A multimedia performance by General Humanity

Duration: ca. 1 hr 5 min, no break

Trailer, opening scene (The White Noise), scene three (Humanimal: Me, Josefine)

Humanimal: Live at MS Stubnitz

ANIMAL ANCESTOR was the closing event of blurred edges – Festival für aktuelle Musik in Hamburg, 16.-29.  October 2020.

blurred edges 2020 was funded by the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media and the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung. www.blurrededges.de

ANIMAL ANCESTOR, Closing event of blurred edges 2020, Bühne zum Hof, Goldbekhaus, Hamburg, 29.10.2020

From the scene “Virus and Me”. Ingrid Hoelzl & Bianca Hein: performance; Georgia Hoppe: E-guitar; Chad Popple: Percussion. Photo: Peter Rauterberg.
From the scene “Virus and Me”, Georgia Hoppe wearing Pest mask. Photo: Gunnar Lettow
From the scene “Virus and Me”. Final monologue by Bianca Hein. Foto: Gunnar Lettow.

Can a “postanthropo-scene” of the living and the nonliving emerge through and as the encounter of anthropology, literature, improvisation, dance, martial arts, and performance?

General Humanity Lab 3: ANIMAL ANCESTOR embraces this challenge in the form of an experiment in transspecies musicking. In a one-hour performance five musicians/performers sound the relation of humans to the invisible and to the entire community of beings through the weaving together of theory and poetry, sound and movement.

Animal Ancestor consists of an exploration of Voudou rituals and techno-trance as techniques of contact with the invisible, of metamorphoses and hybridisations of animals and humans in Kafka’s animal fables and Animal Qi Gong. Poetry and literature, movement and musical improvisation, ritual and abstraction are brought together with a timely reflection on the status of humans and viruses within the long history of life on earth. The performance ends with “divine noise” where the principle of ziran (as-it-isness, non-artificality) turns humanimal musicking into a transspecies kinship.

Still from video “Me, Josefine” used in “humanimal” scene. Performance: Ingrid Hoelzl; camera: Remi Marie; watch here.
Rehearsal for Animal Ancestor. Bianca Hein: Ziran-impro during dfdk summer residency at Wartenau 16, July 2020.
Still from “The White Darkness”, used in the opening scene of Animal Ancestor.
Idea/Concept: Ingrid Hoelzl; video-dance: Emese Kovacs; music: Adam Krasz. Watch here.
search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close