ONDA Into the Unknown

ONDA is a research, performance and art production space, curiously discussing the relationship of humans, nature and politics against the backdrop of (post)anthropocentrism.

Hannah Ma Sebastian M. Purfürst The People United

ONDA ISLANDS 2021

ONDA | live performance ONDA | video sculptures ONDA | photo series ONDA | concept paper / video essay

↗ONDA photo series by Sebastian M. Purfürst | LEM-Studios.com ©2021 All rights reserved.

ONDA is an artistic collaboration between Hannah Ma (hannahmadance | The People United), Sebastian M. Purfürst (LEM-Studios, Berlin) and their teams.

„How do we define the “non-reproducible magical soul”, the aura, the prehistoric part in every individual, the meaning of love in this modern, digitalised, and globalised society? How can we deal with our hidden desires and our deepest fears in times of a pandemic and in the isolation of confinement? ONDA is an emotional road trip into the abysses of ourselves and the abysses of the oceans that remain as silent witnesses of global colonial structures. ONDA explores the relationships of the performers since their collective trip to South Africa in 2019 until today and how they deal with confinement and the cold, technical world. The team asks itself how they can become and build an identity in the stress field of the digital and analogue worlds by analysing the mythology and hybridity of mermaids in our contemporary narratives.

The artistic research focuses on elements of dance, physical acting, audiovisual compositions and immersive digital arts which are woven into transmedia storytelling—experienced through live performances, installations, online presentations, and new media formats.“ Team ONDA 2021.

“The salt which is in seawater is in our blood and tears and sweat”

—from “Seven Tenths—The Sea and it’s Thresholds”by James Hamilton-Paterson

ONDA is proudly produced by hannahmadance/Tufa Tanz e. V. (GER) and The People United asbl (LU) partnered by LEM-Studios Berlin and was/is supported by: Théâtre National du Luxembourg, Trois C-L - Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois, Ministry of Culture Rhineland-Phalatinate, LEM-Studios Berlin, Tuchfabrik Trier, Europäische Kunstakademie Trier, Uferstudios für zeitgenössischen Tanz Berlin, shibak sharqi - Fenster zum Osten gGmbH, Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience, kultur | lx - Arts Council Luxemburg, Active Image Berlin, Conpep Verlag Ltd.

Our special thanks go to: National Arts Festival Makanda, UJ Arts & Culture/University of Johannesburg

Tour 2021

24 March ONDA video prologue BASA Assembly Business and Arts South Africa partnered by British Council (ZA)

7 May Premiere ONDA live performance Théâtre National du Luxembourg, Luxembourg (LU)

9 May and 11 May ONDA live performance Théâtre National du Luxembourg, Luxembourg (LU)

4 June ONDA video essay JOMBA! 2021 Masihambisane Dialogues (ZA)

20 August ONDA live performance Uferstudios für Zeitgenössischen Tanz, Berlin (GER)

3 September ONDA live performance (streaming) Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience (ZA)

4 September “Conversations that Cross Boarders”: Dr. Lliane Loots and Hannah Ma about ONDA at 23rd Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience (ZA)

1–3 October ONDA video installation H2O—The Art of Water, Exhibition by Active Image, Stoeckelkeller Bayreuth (GER)

9 November ONDA live performance Europäische Kunstakademie Trier (GER)

On our music

“Welcome to the Open Water track list: Voices and body percussions are musical instruments we all can play to a certain degree. With great joy we captured many sonic fragments during our rehearsals—from beatboxing to whale-like singing to choir cluster chords that got lost in the reverberations of our rehearsal space almost like in a church. Especially breathing and the intimacy of voices can create a wonderful atmosphere that brings back a certain human element into a composition no digital instrument can. Encouraged by our experiments we jointly created a sample kit based on our voices and body sounds that were later digitally mangled and manipulated. These rather otherworldly and strange results fitted our idea of the “unknown” almost like some field recordings directly from the uncanny valley twenty thousand leagues under the seas.” Sebastian M. Purfürst, 2021

The ONDA music was composed by Sebastian M. Purfürst in 2020 and 2021.

The ONDA music album will be launched in 2022.

On our video sculptures and photos

Considering frequencies and my energetic field as expansions of technology and digital space(es), gives me the opportunity to enlarge my aura almost limitlessly and to reach out globally much further than in pre-digital times. In the context of Digital Humanities that combine ‘traditional humanities’ through applications of contemporary technologies and cultures, ideas of posthuman subjectivities prompt a re-thinking and simultaneous thinking through of what it is to be human. Being and being a so-called human has more potential than what we’re currently doing now. Rationality has been the sword that has cut off feelings and being with everything that is for a long time, and it has made us forget what we really are—a WE, an interconnected collective body, an organism formed by all creation that exists. This is what we try to capture in our photo series and video sculptures. They become parts of our team, they organically become one with our collective body. Hannah Ma, 2021

The ONDA photo series was created as part of the Hannah Ma | The People United tour of Wanderer and Sylphides—humans-fishes-birds, 2019 in Kenton on Sea | ZA Capetown | ZA Trier | GER and Luxemburg | LU

The ONDA video sculptures were created during the rehearsals of ONDA—into the unknown.

Hannah Ma

ONDA is a fragmentary, intuitive road trip in which analogue and digital components are organically interwoven. What I propose to the viewer is a performance based on the aesthetics of a nature documentation. The choreography creates organic swarm patterns, creatural snapshots and energetic synergies based on the example of nature. The performance itself is a hybrid organism—created from the analogue, the digital and the mythical space. It remains post-narrative and deprives the viewer of the aesthetic signs that make the piece intellectually legible. What remains is an invitation to immerse yourself in the unknown and untamed. The point of departure of the choreographic work is my interest in searching for swarm intelligence within performative processes and the intersection of natural and cultural spaces with viral identities including traces of the mythical in our society. Special importance is attached to the mythical, because when viewed from a capitalism-critical point of view, the myth makes us human: a being gifted with reason, who nevertheless only rises to become a creative creature through being gifted with creativity. The myth of the mermaid serves as a bridge between the solid and the fluid, between the material world and that of the imagination, between trash and cultural philosophy, and between intuition and intellect. The hybrid creature “mermaid”, which represents our longing for immortality, our powerlessness in the face of the overpowering and untameable nature and our fears of the female principle, is the interface between madness and understanding. It represents the momentum in which we can lose ourselves due to our own power and divinity. We can loose ourselves Into the Unknown and therefore transition into the WE.

hannahmadance.com

Hannah Ma ist eine deutsch-chinesische Choreografin, Tänzerin, Kuratorin und Produzentin. Sie wurde im bayerischen Berchtesgaden geboren. Ihr Schwerpunkt liegt auf der post-narrativen Übersetzung individueller archaischer Wurzeln in performative Rituale und Prozesse. In ihrer Arbeit verfolgt sie zwei choreografische Richtungen: „Taming Monsters” und „Transformances“. Hannah Mas choreografisches Interesse basiert auf der Suche nach Schwarmintelligenz in performativen und sozialen Prozessen und den damit entstehenden Verwebungen von Natur- und Kulturraum. Hannah Ma und ihr Team reflektieren Spuren von Eurozentrismus, (Post-)Kolonialismus, Rassismus und Sexismus im „Performative Political Body of Today“ und konzentrieren sich auf Diversity Mainstreaming, Empowerment feministischer Aktionen und Genderfluidität. In ihrer choreografischen Sprache mischt sie Elemente aus Tanz, Theater, Ballett, Tanztheater und Performance.

↗ © Sebastian M. Purfürst

” The sirens seemed to have been singing, but in a way that was unsatisfactory. ”

Mauriche Blanchot

Sebastian M. Purfürst

My work for ONDA started in 2018 without knowing it at that time. In retrospect many artistic bits and pieces of ONDA were washed ashore and I just kept collecting them—without planning it I had already started to work on something that would later turn into the audiovisual world of ONDA.

I was travelling the western cape of South Africa after our “Wanderer” performance at the National Art Festival. I spontaneously decided to stay for the rest of my summer holidays to see more of the country and especially its breath-taking ocean and its wonderful coastal scenery. I was fully equipped with my artistic tools— cameras and various lenses, my laptop, my guitar and two wonderful books: “Seven Tenths—The Sea and it’s Thresholds” by James Hamilton-Paterson and “The Invention of Nature” by Andrea Wulf which would be a great inspiration for our upcoming project. The experience of untameable natural forces is unique around Cape Point where the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the warmer waters of the Indian Ocean meet: an endless dark and cold ocean, vivid with creatures that dreams and nightmares are made of.

I spent many days on the shorelines trying to capture the sheer force of crashing waves which got more and more intense, since the African winter was arriving in August. Months later, after my return to Europe, Hannah Ma sent me a project memo with the working title ONDA—which is Italian for “wave“. We started playing around with ideas, musical sketches and plans to return to South Africa for a first workshop in cooperation with the University of Johannesburg.

It seems almost like irony of fate that less than a year later everybody was talking about a wave—a pandemic wave, like an apocalypse in slow motion, hitting the countries of this world. And suddenly all of us were swallowed by this wave. Everything became more and more muffled, like sinking into the depths of an ocean. I always liked the picture of deep waters symbolising our subconsciousness, with endless thoughts and dreams. This metaphor was helpful in trying to stay away from feelings of helplessness and depression. The whole world in an REM phase and it can’t move. Months passed and every new lockdown seemed like a new mark for a bigger depth, with the pressure rising—but also discovering deceleration and silence in a formerly constantly busy and restless world.

Another ten months later and against all hopes it became obvious that the situation for live performances had completely changed for the worse. In retrospect I think the coronavirus might have pushed our efforts into the same direction we knew we had to pull. Digital culture and the convergence of media has massively challenged the idea of the classic live performance and their viewers anyway for years. It is now a big chance to think of innovative forms of presentations—not as a substitute but as a creative expansion of watching, listening, reading, interacting and playing and turning it into a wider experience in transmediality.

As all our projects, ONDA started as a three-dimensional associative space with three axes: Mythology, Nature and Digital Culture. I think understanding ONDA as a transmedia laboratory instead of simply a live event completely liberated us from squeezing too many ideas into one format.

With this approach in mind, our working process highly emancipated from the traditional idea of producing a purely live show: the rehearsal stage became a photo, film and music studio and a mutual space for workshops and lectures. ONDA became the laboratory for live performances, participative video installations and music software development and much more. And with all these possibilities the subtitle “open waters” seemed to fit perfectly.

In 1850, Alfred Tennyson wrote in In Memoriam: “There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea”

I hope we made good use of the stillness of this pandemic sea that has flooded all of us, expanding our artistic perspectives and trying to make the creative streets roar again against all odds.

Sebastian M. Purfürst, born in 1976, is an artist for audiovisual media. The focus of his work is the design of immersive rooms for video, music and sound. Since completing his master’s degree (2005, at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, EMW Potsdam, and the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Potsdam) he has been involved as a freelance artist in various national and international theatre productions, live performances, exhibitions and commercial productions, incl. in Athens, Berlin, Cologne, London, Luxembourg, Mainz, Beijing, Shanghai, and Zurich. In 2017, the artistic cooperation with Hannah Ma started with SWAN where his music and visuals became key element of the performance. The piece was followed by Wanderer (2018) and ONDA (2021). The team presented their work to an international audience in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and South Africa. Many projects are carried out by his own label, LEM Studios (founded 2002), often in cooperation with other artists or commissioned by agencies. Since 2002, he has worked regularly as a freelance lecturer at design and art schools, incl. at the Design Akademie Berlin, BTK – Art & Design Berlin, the UdK University of the Arts Berlin, the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Potsdam, and the Royal College of Art in London. Sebastian M. Purfürst also produces music and videos for the independent Berlin project SONICONOCLASM.

The People United asbl

The People United asbl is an association founded in Luxembourg in 2015 by the choreographer Hannah Ma and her production team to develop society-changing, art-based programs. Since 2015, various cross-genre, crossmedia dance and theatre productions, master classes, workshops, lectures, and community activities have been created that deal with topics such as diversity broadcasting, gender mainstreaming and the strengthening of feminist campaigns under the banner: “Transition into the WE”.

” Transition into the WE”

The People United asbl under the artistic direction of Hannah Ma is supported by:

Trois C-L - Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois | LU Festival Passages Metz | FR German Consulate General New York | NY Dachverband Tanz Deutschland | GER Fonds Darstellende Künste | GER Arp Museum am Rolandseck | GER UJ Arts & Culture Johannesburg | ZA National Arts Festival Southafrica | ZA MAC Creteil Paris | FR Theater Trier | GER Business and Arts Southafrica | ZA Theater Federation Luxembourg | LU CAPE Ettelbrück | LU Theatres de la Ville | LU Arp Museum Rolandseck | GER LEM-Studios Berlin | GER Théâtre National Luxemburg | LU Jomba! Festival | ZA Shibak Sharqi | GER, Uferstudios für Zeitgenössischen Tanz Berlin | GER Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen| GER The German Unesco Commission| GER EU—European Commission— Creative Europe | EU

The ONDA photoseries is available as on demand photobook

Christin Reinartz | Deutschland

Woman Wife Mother Dancer Creature

“Be true to myself, to my body, to my soul. To what extent do we manage to remain authentic while everything around us is always changing?” Besides dancing, I constantly draw and both influence each other. With paper and pen it is the same process I do with my body, constantly drawing in space and creating new shapes.

Valentina Zappa | Italien

I started my dance education in Syria. I create my own expression of movement by combining traditional Arab dance and European contemporary dance. I integrate different cultural perspectives and beliefs in the process of sharing intercultural ideas and viewpoints to create organic new pieces of dance. In the continual search of a new body language and a new way to move the human body, my essentials are power, dynamism, spirit, and mind.

Maher Abdul Moaty | Syrien

Sergio Mel | Brasilien

„The waves that are born and echo inwards are the ones that disturb the most...“ Sometimes life is just complicated, and it scares you. Everything changes, sometimes with time, and sometimes in a few minutes. It‘s not always bad but it sure isn‘t so good all the time. Sometimes it just sucks. But perhaps behind everything there is really the beauty of life. But as long as we don‘t reach behind that cloud veil, we cannot live the life we want and deserve to live. That‘s why I think I enjoy every minute of life, being stupid, innocent, brave and cowardly. Doing all the shit I can do and achieving everything I can achieve. Life doesn‘t have to be beautiful all the time, but all the times I will suck it out as much as I can. I will be out there fighting, living and enjoying. At least, until the curtains close. As a wise friend once wrote: „Working from home, my ass“.

Ritsuko Matsuoka | Japan

For me it’s a big adventure to know who I am. When I discover another side of me, I feel I did a big step for my life. Sometimes I discover suddenly, sometimes after ten years. For me dancing is important for these processes as well as to share part of myself to all. That’s why I am here. And I am dancing.

Why intimacy is the sphere where embodiment and integration become evident in the evolution of humankind in a globalised, capitalist world

“The body is the zero point of the world. The place where paths andspaces cross . the body itself is nowhere. It is the tiny utopian core atthe centre of the world.”

A quote from Michele Foucault “The utopian body” in “Sensorium.Embodied experience, technology, and contemporary art” (Edited byCaroline A. Jones, Cambridge, MA. The MITpress 2006 pp. 232-233)

ONDA video essay by: Hannah Ma and Sebastian M. Purfürstas part of ONDA

Concept paper written by:Hannah Ma

Text and Voice Over: Hannah Ma—recorded in one take to remain close to the field of liveness

EditingSebastian M. Purfürst

ONDA Video Sculptures & Music bySebastian M. Purfürst

PerformersMaher Abdul MoatyValentina Zappa

Presented at: JOMBA! 2021 Masihambisane Dialogues (2–4 June 2021) | JOMBA! CONTEMPORARY DANCE EXPERIENCE and The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts (ZA)

In reality, my body is always somewhere else. Being linked to all somewhere else‘s in the world. In reality, my body is always somewhere else. It is somewhere else in the world. In reality, my body is always somewhere else ... The body is the zero point of the world. The place where paths and spaces cross. In this sense I agree with Foucault‘s statement.

If we continue this line of thought and see the body that way, intimacy is the space where I can share that “no-whereness” with someone else. If in reality my body is always somewhere else, and your body is always somewhere else and our bodies become the zero point of the world, the place where paths and spaces cross: we can be a point zero in space and time together.

Intimacy is the allowance of my body to “just be” in the here and now, in the now/hereness. Intimacy means to me to allow the being to just be … nothing more. With no intention and not in a productive state of being.

Practically, intimacy means to listen to myself with all my senses and putting the analytical mind to rest, putting the ego to rest. The ego dissolves in the water of our body, the water within our cells. The ego dissolves in the ancient knowledge of our body and, therefore, it no longer tries to find perfection in itself, but in the all-connectedness of water within all people. In water it is no longer the categories that are of interest. If I am intimate with myself and if I really share myself in the here and now, if I open up myself to others, to other human beings, then intimacy arises. If I am able to let go of judgement and categories, if I can meet “the other” with an untamed mind, with a fresh look and with the knowledge of colonial structures and the intent to let them vanish—then I am allowing intimacy. It is that allowance and that choice of intimacy that makes us human.

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas formulated the not easythought:

„The transcendence of the other, which constitutes his [...] glory, includes in itsconcrete meaning his misery, his homelessness and the right that belongs to himas a stranger.“ Levinas thinks of ethics and the individual in terms of hisunavailability. A thinking that is already expressed in Martin Buber‘sphilosophy that the I only becomes the I through the you. Levinas reinforcesthis thought that one‘s own thinking, speaking and existence is only possiblethrough the other, in that he does not recognise the other as strong andpowerful, but as weak, displaced and alien. So, coming back to Foucault: the choice to allow intimacy can create to become an utopiancore at the centre of the world. Through choosing to define my me through theyou. Our egos dissolve in the water of our bodies, our egos dissolve in theancient collective knowledge of our bodies and therefore it no longer tries tofind perfection in itself, but in the all-connectedness within all creation. A state where no longer categories are of interest, but—and here we are again withLevinas—the un-tamed multiplicity of the other, of the others in their poverty,in their misery, in their vulnerability. The reality humankind has created has lost that interconnectedness, since there‘s no spacefor intimacy in this rational and globalised, capitalist world. That‘s why weneed a new concept of intimacy related to the bodies’ state of rest and“unproductivity”. Intimacy is something we can only share, when we return to a state of rest and rememberwhat is essential to life and place value on our inner self, the “non-reproduciblemagical soul”, the aura, the prehistoric part in every individual. Obviously, this is not a productive state of being, when you look at it through the lensof globalisation and a capitalist society. Since it means that we‘d freeourselves from a system of productivity and exploitation. That is why intimacybecomes something so fragile. When we’re true to ourselves, no dollars areproduced. That means whenever there‘s an intimate moment, that might not servethe globalised production system, it vanishes into thin air. Which is exactlywhy the construct of intimacy is so important and why we have to be verycareful and have to look out for when politics are intervening and controllingthe zones and spaces where intimacy is possible. MY OWN POLICY OF INTIMACY: Is nothing that I can analyse with my mind and with my rational brain. Intimacy is afeeling down in my guts, it‘s my cells’ intelligence; it‘s cell memory. In the end, if we look at it from a biological standpoint, intimacy is the memory of beingsafe, comforted and nourished in the womb. Throughout our lives, we try to getback to this state of infinite love and security. Intimacy is a space, afeeling, a sensation, a longing. Something we‘re all trying to find throughout our life, but we‘re often struggling with.We don‘t know how to define our intimacy and neither do we know where ourintimate spaces take place. During my work as a hospice helper, I accompaniedpeople pass-ing. I saw a strong connection between people leaving this world andnewborn babies. It‘s how they ARE. Their state of being. They are, but withoutany consciousness of being. The whole experience is very direct and strong. You can feel the body‘s intelligence andmind in the cells, in the flesh, in the skin in everything. This is the space where I see, I experience intimacy. It‘s allow-ing ourselves to be hereand now and not being judged, not being put into a certain category. Whenever achild is born or a person passes, we pass this state of being here and beingvulnerable. Being transparent, in a way, to the other side and being void ofidentity. I think intimacy is very much related to what I call a metaphysical or spiritual state.Where we allow our-selves to be. Just as beings. Without defining our-selves ashuman, without identity. I think this is the most comforting and also, in our capitalist and rational times, themost important state to define and redefine for us as a society. Giving spaceto intimacy, to allow vulnerabil-ity, to allow people to show what they reallyare. When we allow ourselves to just be, with everything that is, and if we‘retogether with nature, we allow ourselves to flow with the pulse of theuni-verse. We allow ourselves to feel the earth’s rhythm. Because we let go ofour analytical mind, that constantly tells us what to do and to controlourselves. To me intimacy is a spiritual state of being, intimacy is the space where we can findour true selves. Political and rational decision-making is having a big impact on us. Intimacy means tosee where our society is at the moment. We have to empower us through intimacy.Abusive situations, all the hurt intimacies, domestic violence, exploitation,and isolation are accepted as dynamics we have created. But only we can empowerourselves to change. We are allowed to be in vulnerable situations that make usfeel ashamed, small or unworthy. Because this is “normal”, because this isallowing intimacy. We have to remember our own dignity and the power of transformation and therefore we haveto change our constructs of togetherness. Humankind has to become a swarm again and to reconnect to swarm intelligence. Hannah Ma, 2021

Press review by Emma Appel Luxemburger Wort, May 11th 2021

„Die Welle als Symbol der Energie- fließender Widerstand: Die einstündige Choreografie beeindruckt durch die radikalen Ausbrüche der Tänzer*innen wie durch die fließenden Übergänge. Mitunter wirken die Tanzfiguren wie organische Zustände… Die Choreografie erschafft mitreißende Momentaufnahmen und Synergien nach dem Vorbild der Naturgewalt und im Einklang mit ihr. So erweist sich die Performance als hybrider Organismus- entstanden aus dem analogen, dem digitalen und dem mythischen Raum. Für den Zuschauer ist „ONDA“ in mehrfacher Weise ein sinnliches Erlebnis: bedrohlich, stürmisch und mythisch. Wer sich auf die Choreografie einlässt, kann sich mit den Tänzer*innen hineinstürzen ins Ungewisse. Zugleich ist es ein ästhetisches Erlebnis, das mit den gängigen Konventionen des Zeitgenössischen Tanzes bricht. Nicht zuletzt wirkt die fließende Choreografie wie eine trotzige Antwort auf die Covid-19 Welle.“

ONDA - into the Unknown | Berlin Tour Uferstudios für Zeitgenössischen Tanz August 2021 Video: Raoul Schmitz/SKIN

ONDA - into the Unknown Théâtre National du Luxembourg May 2021 Video: Bohumil Kosthorytz Limited Availability

People United Magazin

Gefördert vom Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR