Alexis Blake’s multidisciplinary practice brings together visual art, dance, and performance. She perceives the body as an archive of embodied knowledge and investigates how women’s bodies are represented, which she critically examines, questions, disrupts, and renegotiates.
Blake conceived »Crack Nerve boogie Swerve« in 2019 and will further develop the piece for this first presentation of her work in Germany. In it, Blake focuses on notions of transparency, resistance, resonance, and breaking in relation to norms, constraints and oppression. The meaning and act of breaking are explored using sound, the voice, and the body in an installation made of glass and steel. Glass as a material becomes a performer as well as a metaphor for the individual and collective body as both inherently fragile and strong, depending on the way it is handled or treated. It is constantly in an in-between state, shifting between visibility and invisibility, clarity and opaqueness.
The performance brings together three musicians—producer and DJ mobilegirl, low frequency sound researcher Stefanie Egegy, and percussionist Sofia Borges—and six performers from a variety of dance backgrounds—breakdance, hip hop, house, waving, Afro-fusion, contemporary, and ballet. They aim not to appropriate each other’s sonic and body language. Rather they use the glass as a tool to communicate, break patterns, and collectively give rise to a new vocabulary of sound and movement, albeit without losing their subjectivity.
This event is not included in festival passes. Holders of the CTM 2023 Pass and the transmediale+CTM 2023 Connect Pass can however purchase reduced-price tickets.
Please note that during the performance, loud low frequency sounds will be played which may affect pregnant people as well as people with heart conditions.
Artist / Choreography / Direction: Alexis Blake
Sound Artists / Composers: Stefanie Egedy, mobilegirl
Percussionist / Composer: Sofia Borges
Garment Designer: Elisa van Joolen
Dancers / Choreographic Input: Viola Luise Barner, Alice De Maio, Aya Nakagawa, Luana Naquin, Willie Stark
Curator: Léon Kruijswijk
Curatorial Assistant: Lara Scherrieble
Curatorial Fellow (CCS Bard Mentorship Work Placement): Katherine Adams
The project’s sonic part is produced in collaboration with CTM.
The performance is made possible with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fonds, and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Germany, as well as with support from Callie’s.