Wed January 1 - 12:00AM , Wed December 31 - 12:00AM
A co-production between Hedwig Dances Chicago and Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Seven Dancers | Running Time: 45 minutes
META | MOR | PHOS is a sequel to Oskar Schlemmer’s 1922 “Triadic Ballet,” an icon of dance and performance art. While Schlemmer oriented his work towards a man-machine symbiosis, the ideas in META | MOR | PHOS are redirected, through the metamorphosis of insects, to an existential connection to the natural world. Structured in three parts (larva, pupa, imago) with a prologue and epilogue, META | MOR | PHOS reimagines Schlemmer’s classic work for the 21st century. META | MOR | PHOS received critical acclaim at the work’s historic September worldpremiere at the Bauhausfest 2022 in the state-of-the-art Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, Germany, where the company performed before sold-out audiences. Torsten Blume, the Bauhaus’ Festival curator, served as dramaturg for the work and a critical collaborator. As a prelude to the performance, Torsten participated in a Chicago residency in April 2022. Choreographed by Hedwig Dances’ artistic director Jan Bartoszek, the production includes authentic reproductions of Oskar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet” costumes aswell as newly designed costumes by Blume and Jacky Kelsey, fabricated by the Chicago Puppet Studio (a program of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival). Patricia Taxxon composed the score, with additional music and sound design by Richard Woodbury, and Michael Reed designed the lighting. Current Repertoire META | MOR | PHOS – A Triadic Fiction (2022)
Special Technical Requirements for Full Production:
Minimum 30’ x 30’ stage area, black Marley floor, black drawer rigged with crossover, center and side entrances, quick change areas with tables and costume racks and stands.
These Special Workshops are available as add-on or stand-alone opportunities:
HEDWIG DANCES DESIGN + DANCE PROGRAMS– Presented by Jan Bartoszek, Founder and Artistic Director
Over the course of her 35+ years of making dance, Jan Bartoszek has created a body of work which integrates visual design with choreography, including video and live-feed projection, sets, costumes, and objects. Her particular focus is an extensive exploration and playful examination of movement with objects.
Exploring the Creative Process
Bartoszek’s presentation includes a power point exploring aspects of her oeuvre and her approach to her work. She also demonstrates how movement upends and extends the way we perceive objects and how objects provide a focal point, shape space, and infuse movement with metaphor, providing motivation and poetic drive to performance. Following the presentation Bartoszek engages with the audience in a discussion of the elements contained in the presentation.
Duration: 45 minutes followed by 15 minute Q + A
Audience: General Audience
Space+Equipment: Microphone, Podium, Projector, Screen, Audio
WORKSHOPS
Creating imagery and shaping space – Duration: 60 – 90 minutes
Utilizing simple objects (such as hoops, fabric, and rods), Bartoszek leads participants in a movement warm-up,
followed by structured movement exploration with objects to create imagery and shape space.
Audience: Movers, Makers and/or General Audiences
Space: Open Room with tables and chairs for creation as well as space for movement
Costume Creation + Character Development Workshop Duration: 60 – 120 minutes
Part One – (30 – 60 minutes): Participants create abstract character costumes with paper (cardboard, construction paper, etc), tubing, tape and other found objects.
Part Two – (30 – 60 minutes): Participants develop gestural movements and floor patterns that reflect their character
Audience: Movers, Makers and/or General Audiences
Space: Open Room with tables and chairs for creation as well as space for movement
Hedwig + Bauhaus Influence
Bartoszek uses slides and video to explore the Bauhaus modernist art movement. She focuses on two of its prominent artists: Oskar Schlemmer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who have influenced her own dancemaking. She discusses her personal creative journey leading into Bauhaus concepts and their application to her dance work, and her collaborations with Bauhaus Dessau research associate Torsten Blume. She presents excerpts from repertoire works including “META | MOR | PHOS,” a sequel and reimagining of the “Triadic Ballet” made in partnership with Bauhaus Dessau; Futura”*, an exploration of the relevancy of essential Bauhaus principles; and, “LightPlay,” a dance influenced by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s intersection of light and movement.
From 1923 – 1929, visual artist and movement theorist, Oskar Schlemmer ran the Stage Workshop at the Bauhaus. During this time, Schlemmer and his collaborators created two seminal works, the “Triadic Ballet” and “Bauhaus Dances.” These collective works merged dance and design and were influential in shaping contemporary dance and performance art.
Duration: 45 minutes followed by 15 minute Q + A
Audience: General Audience
Space+Equipment: Microphone, Podium, Projector, Screen, Audio
META | MOR | PHOS IMAGES
Feature image above by Vin Reed
All other images by William Frederking
META | MOR | PHOS REVIEWS
”fascinating, playful and downright trippy….dancers shape-shift, swapping and recombining costume pieces in a figurative and literal evolutionary dance.”
“eight dancers seamlessly incorporate both large objects and some inflexible costumes (many based on the original costumes worn 100 years ago) to show us the symbiosis between man and machine (which the original Triadic ballet was focused on) and then the metamorphosis between insects and the natural world; a lot to ponder here!! The dancers ability to relate to the material and to one another made all the ideas synthesize and made for a thought provoking evening. The history of Bauhaus is made relevant and the contemporary connection (metamorphosis) to our natural world was articulated through the deft choreography, the expressive dancers, exquisite costume design and amazing sound design. The sound design was a collaboration between Patricia Taxxon and the talented Richard Woodbury (resident sound designer of the Goodman Theater). The costumes and puppets were an international collaboration between the Chicago Puppet Studio and Torsten Blume of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and others. Some costumes were re-created from the Triadic Ballet while others were created for this new iteration. All of this collaboration coupled with a group of extremely talented dancers who breathe fresh life into this new piece and make it their own, is what makes Metamorphos successful”
Catherine Head, Splash Magazine
“The current idea of transformation refers to the necessary socially explosive change of our epoch. Energy crisis. Turn of the times. Climate change. The gigantic insect extinction. […T]he interpretation of the fantasy creatures is left to the viewer, and with it the journey of existence of the insects from the larva, the small caterpillar with many feet, to the figures pupated in absorbent cotton to the imagos, the adult, sexually mature insects… Meta | Mor | Phos is an experimental arrangement and practice model of human transformation.”
Christl Sperlich, Neues Deutschland