"CORPORIS / Cluster II”

Second dance-media performance for 6 dancers of the dance trilogy "De Humani Corporis Fabrica"

“Corporis/Cluster II” is the second part of the trilogy of works which has the human body –it’s constituents, mechanics and it’s “humanness” as a theme. 

With ”De Humani Corporis Fabrica” we were mostly concerned with the creation of a complex choreography in combination with new media. To perceive the whole three works as an active body itself comprised of the dance, sounds and moving images. A whole fabric integrating structure and function consisting of a choreography created with the aid of software to fragment and reassemble body parts in new complex ways in motion.

The aim of “Corporis/Cluster II was to stage a virtual representation of our biosphere inhabited by an ”unnatural” human body, distorted both through a costume and complex movement mechanics. 

By artificially re-creating onstage alienated humans and setting them against our natural habitat, we aimed to make a visual reflection as to the interdependence of both man and nature and on the current issues of the manipulation of these. 

In an age were genetic engineering has reached the stage of being capable of reproducing clones and to mutate organisms, the DNA, the essential molecule which contains the code for the transfer of genes of every living organism, plays a conceptual role in the creation of “Corporis/Cluster II”. 

With Corporis we have attempted to make a critical staging by portraying the body as an artificially created being or mutant in a laboratory (with costumes consisting for this purpose of rubber protuberations), and with dancers who interpret clones and were chosen for this purpose according to their similarities and sizes. We have represented this laboratory onstage as a Terrarium where an experiment is taking place and in which instead of reptiles,  the human body is in display as a bio-mechanical sentient being in the environment it inhabits.

With obvious influence from the advances in artificial insemination and genetic engineering, the dance movements were created using the computer program Life Forms 3.5. 
By disembodying the human body into a virtual self in the computer, we segmented this virtual body into various parts and subjected these to various transforming processes, allowing us to mix and remix segmented body movements to create new ones. These movements developed in the computer then came alive through the real dancers interpretations of these.

The staging of ”Corporis” follows a clear ”hyperrealist” line of work in contrast to the abstract nature of the dance itself. It consists of video projections which shows the environment we inhabit: planet earth’s landscapes, clouds, seas and underwater creatures. 

His newest choreography ‘Corporis / Cluster II’, which was shown at Tanzhaus Wasserwerk on the weekend, is a consistent, very aesthetic work, which especially convinces because of the high level of the dancers. Their readiness, smoothness and precision, showing extremly demanding and unusual movement, is tremendous. The puppet-like dance out of a test-tube fits perfectly to the sterile video images (by Ursula Palla and Marc Wischnitzky) and to the sound scenery (by Martin Wigger, Michael Renkel and Gato Leiras) which often reminds of somebody searching through the channels in the radio and which explores a spectra of new sounds. Tages Anzeiger, 22.9.03