Anyone who enters the garden of Dock 11 Eden in Pankow feels like they are in an oasis. Dock 11, the popular dance location in Prenzlauer Berg, set up five beautiful studios here in 2009. The dance groups that rehearse here can look out onto the greenery through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but performances are now rare. The director and spatial artist Penelope Wehrli has now invited people to the performative installation “Anatomorphosen” in Pankow.
In the 1990s, the Swiss artist designed the stage sets for Hans Kresnik’s Choreographic Theater at the Volksbühne. Since then, she has developed hybrid works in different constellations. “Anatomorphoses” is announced as a synesthetic experiment in space, movement and sound. The title is made up of the terms anatomy and metamorphosis, and the starting point is speculation about biologically different beings. Penelope Wehrli herself wrote the fictional texts about these imaginary human species: Homo Sapiens Tripedis, Homo Sapiens Medusa and Homo Sapiens Sepia.
The audience sits on the floor and surrounds the two performance areas. Sam Auinger’s sound design has already put the audience in the mood for this evening, which is all about expanded perception. The noises from the environment are finely filtered, creating a spatial sound that sometimes seems to expand, sometimes is perceived as a quiet drone.
The two dancers Julek Kreuzer and Mariana Romagnani in transparent gray costumes tip out of the vertical axis, push one foot forward and stop. In doing so, they stick out their bottoms in a strange way. They then cross the stage with shuffling steps. Only later can an explanation be heard about Homo sapiens Tripedis – a creature characterized by a tail-like appendage.
© Dieter Hartwig
This appendage, which you can also sit on, is described as a “feathery, elastic, tapered member”. It is said to have legendary properties: it gives the body inner support and greater resilience. But the idea that these anatomical fictions feed or fertilize the dance remains an assertion. The dancers simply cannot escape their skin and transform themselves into a chimera. And imagining that they have a tail that functions like a third foot is beyond their imagination.
The movement sequences that choreographer Lina Gómez and her dancers have devised are quite monotonous. Gómez works mainly with displacements in space and in the body, but imposes strict restrictions on the dancers. The interspersed gestures seem random.
The flashing shapes in her hair and on her shoulder are sensors that register her movements. The data is transmitted to devices in the garden, where it materializes as a spray mist. A lot of technical effort for a fleeting phenomenon. The water feature does not add any subtle nuances to the proceedings, but at least it is useful from a gardening point of view.
It is said of Homo Sapiens Medusa that he breathes deeper and has a larger chest. But the dance does not seem any more airy. There is no sign of the “perceived weightlessness”. In the third sequence it seems as if the performers are being torn apart by conflicting impulses. They move without any discernible direction or intention. What is also reported about Homo Sapiens Sepia is curious.
Bacteria that settle on the second layer of the epidermis create color plays that can also be synchronized. The spun texts do not radiate dance energies and atmospheric vibrations. The “Anatomorphoses” are probably influenced by posthumanist thinking, but remain stuck in the diffuse.