hello!earth-news

hello!earth - hello!you - hello!we

There we are, alive and our flip flops ready to go!

Right now in the middle of a 3 month of working time in Brazil and are making work in Sao Paulo at SESC- Mostra des Artes, Recife- Festival Internacional de dansa do Recife and the Panoramafestival Rio de Janeiro.

Many things happened since we sent out our last newsletter and nothing is the same. Or maybe everything is.

For example did we change name. You will not hear from UDflugt network any longer when we do work, but hello!earth. This is the company name for works initiated by Vera and Jacob , who formerly produced their things as part of UDflugt- network. Our new website is: www.helloearth.cc and is in the air and will soon be flying smoothly. UDspring continues as a platform for work for kids.

Other than that, we are still busy with investigating cities from above aside below between and have still strange animals involved in our performances.

We continue to make work based on the concept “ The Invisible Reality Show*” and are still busy with exploring relation, perception and how we make up reality. A journey, that leads us deeper and deeper into a vast sea of possibilities, wondrous things and questions, as we travel on and share this journey with artists and audience in different countries and contexts.

Right now here in Brazil, we moved from Sao Paulo’s moonlike skyscraper landscape further on to Recifes sound of waves and heat. Live is lively as it is, and stepping the sand of a white beach I think of the earth turning right at this moment and the immense diversity of life happening on this planet right, right now.

A girl passes by on the beach. Talking with headset loudly so I can hear both her and the person’s voice she is talking to. His voice its deep and comes from somewhere, I do not know where that is.

The sky is everywhere and dance happens now.

And what you just read is past already, and life has moved ahead …as well as we did. After 2 month with great experiences, work, performances and exchange in Recife and Sao Paulo we arrived now in Rio de Janeiro, the third station for our work in Brazil this year. Panoramafestival just opened and we are preparing for premiere the coming week….

Here we are moving in between economic giants and buildings around the business center of Rio and fallen houses of colonial times just few corners away. In between people walking, people running , people sleeping on the asphalt, under trees, people surviving working, waiting, eating, piing , surviving, just as you and me, and yes! we love it.

If you want to see us mediated - even though we are quite shy and do find it difficult to move within media business- we appear randomly in Brazilian TV and newspapers these days…. As we became part of some of the bigger fish cultural events of the country.

Check www.helloearthbrazil.blogspot.com for fotos and audience feedback of our performances in Brazil- (in portugese though).

If you never heard about us or The Invisible Reality Show before

Short about the concept :

“ The Invisible Reality Show*” is a concept for creating site-specific performances, that focus on the experience of the audience and provide them with multiple frames to perceive their surroundings, situations and themselves from mixed stand points, altering angels and with new sensitivity.

Audience is sent individually on a prepared path through city or nature. With stimulations from sound, text, images and meetings with performers, a non-fictional play within reality starts to challenge surprise, mirrors each one’s perception and view on the world.

The remodeled fabric of perception leads to the open question of how reality is created and what reality is? And the embodied experience of the audience becomes the performance.

The concept showed to be hybrid in various ways. People from the different artistic fields such as dance, theater, visual art and sound found this work relevant for their working field as well as urban planers, sociologist, psychologists, anthropologists, architects, journalists and media people.

Latest performances based on the concept by hello!earth Vera Maeder and Jacob Langaa Sennek at Panoramafestival Rio de Janeiro and Metropolis Biennale Copenhagen 2007.

*) The Invisible Reality Show is a concept by Vera Maeder, developed during a research in 2005 in collaboration with Eero Tapio Vuori, Mette Aakjær, JacobLangaa Sennek, Daniel Norback and Saskia Habermann

Sunday, November 2, 2008

hello!earth in brazil

The rabbit followed us to Brazil, where we do 3 site –specific works based on the concept the Invisible Reality Show. After our last years success at Panoramafestival Rio de Janeiro, we are invited to do works in Sao Paulo by SESC as part of the festival of perception and arts- MOSTRA DES ARTES SESC SAN PAULO 08 www.sescsp.org.br, Recife as part of the Festival Internacional de Dansa do Recife www.dancarecife.blogspot.com and once more in Rio de Janeiro at the Panoramafestival www.panoramafestival.com

Performance dates:

Recife: October 6- 9

Sao Paulo: October 13-15

Rio de Janeiro: November 5-8

All works are developed in cooperation with Brazilian artists and locally using the context and sites of the different places and are therefore quite different performances.

We collaborate in all projects in Brazil with Ana Paula Albe, who will do video work based on the performances and Joao Victor Calvacante is with us as performer, co-creating artist and assistant director all the way through. Both of them were part of the project at Panoramafestival 2007.

If you want to see the us- come! You re still on time to be with us in Rio! It is more than fantastic to be in this amazing country! If you only can manage to be with us in cyberspace you can follow the project on www.helloearthbrazil.blogspot.com

Supported by SESC Sao Paulo, Panoramafestival, Recife Festival and the Danish Arts Council for Performing Arts.

reality gaps research

we started our research on audience sensitive approaches, framing and contextualizing life in public space in May this year, and it will continue in 2009 with one more week of work, where we test different ways of expanding and working with the concept “ The Invisible Reality Show”, and started up a nice flow of experimentation, which was followed by the Metropolis lab.

The project will have a follow up in spring 2009

Artists involved: Vera Maeder (performance), Jacob Langaa Sennek (set design, sound), Boaz Barkan (movment, dance), Jakob Brandt Pedersen (sound)

Supported by the Danish Arts Council, Fond for Scenekunstnerisk Udvikling

“lab ”

“lab ” -Metropolis Biennale Residency at KIT Copenhagen International Theater, www.kit.dk

We were invited by Copenhagen’s International Theater to be artists in residence and develop our first steps towards a performance and manual during the Metropolis Biennale 2009. The first part happened during July 3rd to 18th.

The laboratories were concerned with the relation of virtual presence and physical presence and to develop social sensitive spaces and neighborhood involvement as part of the artistic practice.

For more info see our webpage and you can look at questions and process of the lab on the blog: www.helloearthlab08.blogspot.com

Artists involved were: Boaz Barkan (movement/dance), Daniel Belasco Rogers (visual art, locative media, www.planbperformance.org), Jacob Langaa Sennek (visual elements), Fernando Barrajon (interactive design), Zeenath Hasan (multi media), Vera Maeder (performance artist/theater)

Supported by Københavns Internationale Teater

The Invisible Reality Show* Manual

September 1 to 7 a first research was conducted towards developing a manual based on the Invisible Reality Show. A guidebook for experiences in daily life- an Invisible Reality Show -do it yourself kit.

With Nørrebro as focus area for this time, we conducted a week of questioning, exploring and testing possibilities for involvement of local neighborhood in untraditional experiences at well-known places.

The process was shown at the Nørrebro Markedsdage on the first September weekend in Copenhagen. You could call the rabbit by phone to get involved in undercover explorations of Nørrebro

Artists involved were: Zeenath Hassan (multi media and communication design), Jacob Langaa – Sennek (visual design), Vera Maeder (theater/dance and performance)

The project is planned to be continued as part of the KIT Metropolis Biennale in 2009, with a performance and release of the manual.

Supported by Copenhagen International Theater KIT and Kulturhus 2200X- Kultur i Krydsfelt /Mimersgade Kvarterløft

hello!earth in Jerusalem

In late June, we traveled to Jerusalem to start preparations for a project in 2009- a site specific walk in the old city of Jerusalem in collaboration with the Palestinian National Theater.

During our stay, we held an introduction and workshop for theater students and artists on site specific work based on the concept The Invisible Reality Show*.

We talked to many people and each talk left us with more questions and astonishment on the complexity of the situation of this place on earth.

This was the first phase of a project that is envisioned to continue in 2009 and finish with a performative travel through the old city in Jerusalem in August 2009.

The project is supported by DCCD s Middle East and Palestine Program and the Danish Arts Council.

MOMO- theater performance for kids (UDspring)

MOMO- theater performance for kids

MOMO is in the making. We had to postpone our premiere twice because of illness of one of the performers. A piece about absence and presence where we started to wonder, how to interpret the things happening on the way, it seems that Cassiopeia- the turtle in the story, that does move very slowly yet very fast- is greeting us and that we might have to discover her spirit in depth.

Anyhow, we look forward to see you with us on a green grass meadow with Astronauts, who made their way into the piece through a back door….

Artists involved: Jacob Langaa Sennek ( set design, sound and performer), Nanna Susanne Hviid ( performer), N.N; Vera Maeder ( direction)

The project is supported by the Danish Arts Council, Skuespillerforbundets Blankbåndsmiddler, Oticon Fonden and Svenninge Fond.

The Planet

A interactive installation and role-play project in different schools started in December 2007 in Copenhagen. Pursueing the question of what is happiness, and what do we need to be happy? We created a planet in two-three weeks time. An utopia. A reality that we inhabit together with the kids or youngsters for 3 days or longer.

The project was done at HGO School Copenhagen, Fri Skole Rørvig and Albertslund Lille Skole will follow in beginning of 2009.

artists involved: Hanne Pedersen, Vera Maeder and Stine Worm /Sigrid Bennike

The project is supported by the Danish Arts Council´s " Huskunsterordning"

other

Writing and developing

Vera received a working grant, that will allow her to work intensely for two month writing about work based on the concept “The Invisible Reality Show”, and go in depth with some of its aspects.

She received a working grant from the danish arts council to do that.

Work in India with design students

Vera will travel to India in January, where she was invited by Zeenath Hassan to teach a workshop to design students as part of a project on woman and gender in Bangalore. She looking forward to say yes while shaking head, she says . Body positions and awareness in relation to public space from a woman’s point of view will be focal points of the workshop.

More info on http://www.genderandpublicspace.org/

previous venues: konstfack

(http://fearandadornment.blogspot.com/2008/05/ skinnarviksparken.html)

columbia (http://blog.genderandpublicspace.org/#home).

The project is an initiative of veronica wiman, independent curator

(http://www.artleak.org/civicmatters/bio_wiman.html) and sissi westerberg, jewellery artist

(http://www.sissiwesterberg.com/) .

Set Design at Teater Hund

Jacob continues to collaborate with Teater Hund/ Copenhagen and it makes the 3rd time that he will create the set design for Teater Hunds performance . Opening date 1th of April 2009 at Annemone Teatret Copenhagen.