DEEN
DEEN
Festival
in Bitterfeld-
Wolfen

HANDARBEIT

Isabelle Schad, in Zusammenarbeit mit, Nora Mertes, Josephine Findeisen, Claudia Tomasi & Frauen aus Bitterfeld-Wolfen

Choreographer Isabelle Schad has been developing a dance piece in collaboration with dancers Josephine Findeisen, Claudia Tomasi and sculptor Nora Mertes together with women from Bitterfeld-Wolfen since fall 2023. It focuses on their own life stories and asks how personal experiences can be interwoven through dance.

What do our hands tell us about our life, our work, our actions? What have they helped me with? What did they carry? Who have they held? Can we create a common landscape from our hands? Our life story shapes our bodies. Personal and collective experiences are inscribed in our posture and movements. Can these experiences also be expressed through dance? Based on movement principles such as weight shifting, stretching and breathing techniques, choreographer Isabelle Schad initially develops small sketches in collaboration with dancers Josephine Findeisen and Claudia Tomasi and sculptor Nora Mertes as well as women from Bitterfeld-Wolfen, which focus on their own perception of their hands and tell something about society, being human and ageing in resonance with their own history. Gradually, a choreography and videography unfolds in the field of tension between inside and outside, intimacy and community, hand and work, grasping and letting go, miniature and total process. The resulting sculptures and landscapes are made of interwoven hands and images, in order to look towards the events of our time in solidarity.

Concept, choreography and realization: Isabelle Schad
Concept and realization video and space: Nora Mertes
Conceptual and choreographic support, realization: Josephine Findeisen, Claudia Tomasi

With: Christine Baßin, Heike Faber, Josephine Findeisen, Dorothee Fischer, Rita Gehlhar, Katrin Jarczewski, Christine Koschmieder, Katrin Stephan, Gudrun Trommer, Claudia Tomasi, Bärbel Verhooren, Sieglinde Walkow, Diana Wesser, Edda Westphal.

Camera: Alberto Stievanin
Lighting design: Max Krispin
Sound: Damir Simunovic, in collaboration with Ivan Bartsch, Nora Mertes and Isabelle Schad
Live sound mixing: Ivan Bartsch

A co-production of Isabelle Schad, Festival OSTEN/Kulturpark e.V. and the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss. The Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media on the basis of a resolution of the German Bundestag. In cooperation with Frauen helfen Frauen e.V. / Frauenzentrum Wolfen.