performance archives

2022

Concept, direction, design, and interpretation by Heidee Lyn Alsdorf with original music by Matteo Cassi. a life’s longing for itself is an intimate self portrait of the artist as she investigates the momentum carried through her into this world as a descendant of women and men who ran away from complicated and dangerous identities, discomfort, and shame in order to survive a wounded world.

Photos by Andrew Camarillo.

Isabel Lewis and Jeff Mills

Drift is an encounter between the sonic composition by Jeff Mills and the choreographic compositions of Isabel Lewis. Hatsumi, composed by Mills appears on 01, the first release from Reif - the work is inspired by Masaaki Hatsumi. Lewis’ work O.C.E.A.N.I.C.A imagines human beings swimming through a social ocean- floating and sometimes drowning but surviving. How does our physical nature conform to our intentions? The collision of these two works suggests that there is no division between our interior and exterior experiences, further proving that integrated mind and body connections are totally natural and easily observed through movement. Meditating on the quality of movement through a free-flowing tango of forms, merging and moving through, swimming and listening deep, imagining new ways to reconcile one’s artistic activity in relation to the responsibility to protect nature, specifically the ocean, a tidal wave of possibility emerges.

Drift is a co-production by REIF, the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and TBA21–Academy for 5th floor with the support of Nike Berlin. This film was made during Isabel Lewis exhibition performance O.C.E.A.N.I.C.A. at Ocean Space commissioned by TBA21–Academy.
Sonic Composition ‘Hatsumi’: Jeff Mills
Choreographic Composition: Isabel Lewis
Director: Marcelo Alcaide
Videographers: Matteo Stocco and Matteo Primaterra [Kinonauts]
Editor - Melanie Glueck
Styling: a. co
Styling assistant: Francesco Ceccarelli
Perfomers: Claudia Veronesi, Gabriele Valerio, Cecilia Xuetong Feng, Marta Vergani, Gaia Tinarelli, Elio Rosalba Bonaccini, Umberto Zanette, Antonio Giuseppe Bia, Eleonora Camerotto, Vittorio Messina, Laura Inzoli, Beatrice Brunetto, Chiara Cecconello, Andrea D'Arsiè, Heidee Alsdorf, Federica Bastoni, Miliana Reale Calabrese, William Nylind, Leonardo Sinopoli, Giulia Pellin Mattiocco and Danila Gambettola.

Thanks to TBA21–Academy, Ocean Space, Eleni Tsopotou, Yoko Uozumi, Richard Kennedy, Melanie Glueck, Axis Records, Nike Berlin and Andrea Bellini.

Toni Serban

A music video for Toni Serban’s “It’s Only About You and Me” with videography by Elvis Arustei.

Isabel Lewis

Venice, Italy | 2021

A newly commissioned work at Ocean Space, Venice, Italy. Curated by Chus Martínez, conceived of and created by artist and choreographer Isabel Lewis with the help of 20 international performers. O.C.E.A.N.I.C.A. invites participants and visitors to dance through the Ocean. The exhibition-performance is an invitation to attune to our continuity with the Ocean to transform and articulate a different relation.

Coinciding with the Biennale Musica in September, TBA21–Academy's new commission is a ballet that takes up the dynamics of biological-physical interactions in the Ocean as a choreographic strategy. Lewis invites participants and visitors to the church of San Lorenzo and its campo as if they are inside the waters of the Oceans, the bodies taken by the currents and the voice integrated in the piece as a political component, a marker of Venice’s long traditions of choirs, communal politics, music and sound as an identity trait.

Sycamore Age

2021

Castaways without a Storm is a new single from Sycamore Age available on all streaming platforms from Woodworm Lable, published by Universal Publishing. Castaways without a Storm written and produced by Sycamore Age. Recorded by Sycamore Age Studio and Blue Dot Productions Studio. Video direction by Erika Errante. Thank you, Rc Waves.

Heidee Lyn Alsdorf & Matteo Cassi

Arezzo, Italy | 2019

Heidee Lyn Alsdorf and Matteo Cassi collaborate to reimagine the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in a 15 minute sharing of movement and music. Commissioned by Oklahoma University Arezzo. Performed in the Rooney Family Center as part of International Night 2019. Photo by Aleksandr Semikopenko.

Meliciano, Italy | 2019

Promenade is a theatrical passage in the antique village of Meliciano in the province of Arezzo, Italy. Promenade is an annual invitation to come together around the theatrical traditions and modern expressions of those inhabiting small towns - our place, our homes, our courtyards and gardens contain the creative and expressive activity of our community.

Promenade is created every year by the collective of Broken Jump Theatre. In Promenade 2019, the public walks from one place to another in the country town, to visit the 12 months of the year, between theatrical performances, stories, dances, and songs of the popular and non-popular tradition.

w/ Heidee Alsdorf, Nicoletta Germani, Alberto Tirabosco, Luca Viviani, Juan Pablo Figun Correa & Nicole Nigro. Photo by Giampiero Serboli.

Heidee Alsdorf & Nicole Nigro

Arezzo, Italy | 2019

A work-in-progress showing of SIMER presented by the Collaborative Arts Lab Alsdorf and Nigro conspire to reveal obscure shades of femininity and female actions through an originally devised dance-theatre performance. Throughout historic, cultural, and personal narratives women present themselves in a multitude of ways. They are lovers, mothers, goddesses, teachers, witches, weavers, hags… and undeniably “cleaners”.

The act of cleaning, as well as the state of cleanliness, are deeply associated with the feminine, responsible for literal scrubbings, corporeal cleanings, and heart launderings. Alsdorf and Nigro explore the paradox found in societal depictions and objectifications of women: getting intimate with and purging life’s most repulsive substances is perceived as women’s work, while women are simultaneously expected to be precious, well-kept, unsoiled creatures. This reality is unappealing to those who have the privilege to remain unconscious about life’s copious messes, but a brave lingering gaze reveals the grit, sacrifice, tolerance, and resilience of women participating wholly in life’s enduring cycles. The determination to go through the dirt, the piss, the shit, the mucus, and the blood, because it must be done for the creation and preservation of life. (Photo by Lucas Borges Diez)

The artists draw upon iconic feminine imagery: the Madonna, Aphrodite, Lady Liberty, Marilyn Monroe, etcetera; as well as the daily feminine and the work they do. SIMER rewrites the mythology of cleaning ladies, or better stated, women who choose to clean, neither as women who degrade themselves in the service of others nor as those who busy themselves in automatic responses to fear, instability, or neglect, but as those who hold in their hands the worst of life and make it holy. Since their meeting in 2016, Alsdorf and Nigro’s shared work incorporates external materials as stimulus for creation. In SIMER, their primary materials of research are 20 meters of lycra stretch-fabric, water sacks, clotheslines, and 1.5 meter tall platforms, which all present the duo with tangible matter to generate sensation, bring complication, and heighten their fleshy explorations. For the audience, the materials become surreal extensions of visceral experience and visual perception.

Arezzo, Italy - April 17 - May 14 2019

Broken Jump Theatre, Site-Specific Theatre performs with Arezzo Crowd Festival Venerdì 31 Maggio dalle 17:00 alle 18:15 "Something’s in the way" @ Piazza S.Agostino/Piazzetta Sopra i Ponti/Piazza San Francesco Sabato 1 Giugno dalle 17:30 alle 18:45 "Metastrade" Cortile di Casa Petrarca & un Flash mob alle 19:00 a Piazza S.Agostino

Heidee Alsdorf & Nicole Nigro

South Bohemia, Czech Republic - 2018

Heidee and Nicole began their creative collaboration in 2016 through the MFA program for Physical Theatre at Accademia dell’Arte. Their endeavours have developed further in collaborative efforts within Broken Jump Site-Specific Theatre. Heidee and Nicole in rehearsal for "Metastrade" with Broken Jump Site-Specific Theatre, Meliciano, Italy 2018. Photo by Lourdes MeGehee.

A 4-week residency at Švestkový Dvůr in South Bohemia, Czech Republic with dance-theatre artist Nicole B. Nigro. Alsdorf and Nigro will devise a physical theatre work entitled simer (working title), drawing from iconic imagery of the feminine, as well as Alsdorf and Nigro’s personal histories. Diving into historical and cultural narratives, the interpretations of female archetypes may present themselves as children, lovers, hags… Through this exploration of female nature, Alsdorf and Nigro will offer a unique body-based story told through the languages of dance and theatre. One of their primary materials of research is a large piece of lycra stretch-fabric, which presents the duo with a tangible material to generate sensation, bring complication, and heighten their fleshy explorations. For the audience, the lycra becomes a surreal extension of visceral experience and visual perception.

South Bohemia, Czech Republic - 2018

A six week group residency for MFA Cohort V Accademia dell’arte 2018 at ŠVESTKOVÝ DVŮR or “Plum Yard” under Divadlo Continuo Theatre culminating in a final performance with the Accademia dell’Arte in Jihlava (CZ) on October 10, 2018.

“History, buildings, ideas, rules, stories and much more. As coded genetic messages we inherit in our DNA multitudes of information that, from generation to generation, travel time until they reach us. What we discover and meet daily during our lives was left by those who were here before us. We live in the scenery of the past, eras that we both belong to and are strangers to. The ones who have left this behind for us are gone. What do we do with this heritage? Do we throw it away as junk, restore it, let it be? Or do we build something new of our own? What will be left for the ones that will come after we are gone?”

Authorial performance What’s left behind is a research of personal and group experiences, attitudes, stories and opinions related to the question of destination, free will and the burden of genetic heritage on contemporary people, using the language of physical and visual theatre. It is the result of a two month long residency of Accademia dell’Arte students from Arezzo (IT) under the pedagogical and artistic guidance of the Divadlo Continuo Theatre members at the Plum Yard in Malovice (CZ).” Photos by Adéla Vosičková 2018.

PREMIERE:
6 OCT 2018 / 7 pm – Plum Yard, Malovice
REPRISES:
8 OCT 2018 / 8 pm – Pilsen, Moving Station
9 OCT 2018 / 7:30 pm – Prague, Disk Theatre
10 OCT 2018 / 7:30 pm – Jihlava, DIOD

PART TWO

Berlin, Germany - 2018

Four weeks with Familie Flöz in Berlin, Germany. An intensive of physical training, scenic devising, and studio showings featuring masks made in workshop with Thomas Rascher and the Flöz masks. Studio Flöz, Berlin, 2018. Photo: Valerio Vallone.

Oh How Flesh Folds

Heidee Alsdorf

Heidee Alsdorf & Nike Redding

Arezzo, Italy - 2017

Conceived and written by Nike Redding with music interpretations by Caroline Boeke and Francesco Chimenti. Performed by Heidee Alsdorf, Nike Redding, and Aran Savory. An Exodus was originally created as a GradLab project for MFA Cohort IV for the completion of an MFA in Physical Theatre from Accademia dell’Arte and subsequently performed at Crisis Arts Festival 2017 at Villa Godiola in Arezzo, Italy.

Arezzo, Italy - 2017

There are two words in the Italian language which demonstrate the meaning of the English word to play. One is reserved for the skillful use of a musical instrument, suonare, while the other refers to the enjoyment of games and childish activities, giocare. Suonami is a love story between an artist, in this case a fictional rendering of Beethoven, and a woman torn between love for the person and love for the artist. Commissioned as part of OIDA (Orchestra Instabile di Arezzo) for their 2017 performance, Suonami is directed by Sam McGehee with interpretation by Heidee Lyn Alsdorf and Chris Truini. Thank you to Spazio Seme for residential support.

Six week residency at FLIC to study a chosen apparatus (Chinese pole) along with acrobatics, object manipulation, juggling, ballet, and handstands. With support from Accademia dell’Arte, this residency culminated in a final performance under the direction of Stevie Boyd titled “Working Title”.

2016

A performance commissioned by Avignonesi Winery of words, music and dance inspired by wine. Through stories, actions, dance and music, WINE TALES compares the complexity of the flow of human life with that of wine as a game. Aging understood as a process of maturation and knowledge. WINE TALES (2016) is interpreted by Francesco Botti on vocals, Leonardo Lambruschini and Heidee Lyn Alsdorf for dance, Paolo Vaccari on flute, with the participation of Staff Avignonesi Hospitality www.avignonesi.it