It is in Fanghoumé, Senegalese village, that took shape at the invitation of Germaine Acogny, "Grande Dame" of contemporary African Dance, more than thirty years ago, "Lufus", a piece of contemporary dance. Disconcerting, singular and rewarded, in 1986, at the international choreographic competition of Bagnolet / Paris.
"Vorgänge", this Austrian collective, young at that time, who had invented "Lufus" and who had danced the creation in Fanghoumé in the sacred wood of the priestess Aloopho, no longer exists for a long time. However, the piece, its idea, its shape, its atmosphere have never left one of the members of this collective: During the last thirty years, Editta Braun searched, again and again, around "Lufus" with its own company. She has enriched and transcended this theater of bodily illusion with an exclusively female distribution with almost naked bodies, she has, in changing contexts, constantly reinterpreted. "Lufus" has become "Luvos", readable as a comment to the disturbing excesses of genetics, as the evocation of fascinating and seductive underwater worlds. The beings of "Luvos" were humanoids, plants, vermin, monsters, abstractions.
Today, Editta Braun returns, with three dancers from her company, to the place where it all began. The latest of her creations around this theme begins a brand new stage that bears the name of this place: Fanghoumé. A tribute.
«Fanghoumé»
premiere: 8 February 2019 - Studio Henriette, École des Sables, Toubab Dialaw, Senegal
dance, research: Anna Maria Müller, Martyna Lorenc, Sonia Borkowicz
composition: Thierry Zaboitzeff
lightdesign: Thomas Hinterberger
technical assistance: Zapo Babilée
dramaturgy: Gerda Poschmann-Reichenau
choreography: Editta Braun
length: 48 minutes
funded by Österreichisches Bundeskanzleramt Kunst, Stadt Salzburg, Land Salzburg, Austrian Embassy Dakar, École des Sables, Institut Français Dakar
Anna Maria Müller - dance, research, choreographic assistant
Born 1980 in Salzburg, Mag. phil., dance education at the Arts Educational School (London), University Vienna and Anton Bruckneruniversity Linz. Since 2005 freelance dancer, choreographer. Founds 09 the Pilates Studio Innsbruck. Since 2006 member of editta braun company.
Martyna Lorenc - dance, research
Born in 1987 in Poznań, Poland. MA cognitive science (UAM Poznań), BA dance&pedagogy (Bruckneruniversity Linz). Engagements: Georg Blaschke/M.A.P.Vienna, David Zambrano, Rosalind Crisp, C.O.V. Company Off Verticality. Own choreographical works (Beton, Alien drive), video works and research (phantomsbeyondthebrain.blogspot.hu.
Sonia Borkowicz - dance, research
Born 1993 in Poznań (PL). BA in Dance & Pedagogy in Anton Bruckner University Linz. Engagements with Isabelle Schad, Jianan Qu, Yumiko Yoshioka, Editta Braun. Founding member of artistic collaboration "Collective B". Culture manager and event curator of Body/Sound/Space and Tanzhafen Festival (Linz/AT).
Thierry Zaboitzeff - composition
Born 1953 in the north of France. Founder and composer for the Avantgarde-Rock- Formation ART ZOYD, touring world-wide. Since 1995 solo and group-formation projects. Freelance composer and musician for film, dance, theater, events. Publishing of 28 Albums.
Editta Braun - artistic direction
* 1958 in Austria, pioneer of contemporary choreography in Austria. Academic degree in Science of Sports and German Language and Literature (University of Salzburg). Studied dance in Paris and New York, teaches at the University of Salzburg and at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz. Has created more than 30 productions (physical theater, dance) and tours world-wide with her company. Characteristics: intercultural collaborations, politically engaged, feminist view on society and theater. International Prize of Arts and Culture of the City of Salzburg in 2014, Great Prize of Arts of the Region of Salzburg 2017.
The Background
More than thirty years ago, at the invitation of Germaine Acogny, the grande dame of African dance, the body theatre Lufus was created in Fanghoumé, a village in southern Senegal. Strange, strange and in Bagnolet/Paris 1986 awarded with the most important international choreography prize at that time.
The collective "Vorgänge", at that time seven young men and women from Austria, who invented Lufus - also to the music of Thierry Zaboitzeff - and danced the world premiere in Fanghoumé in the holy grove of the voodoo priestess Aloopho, have long since separated. Some of the performers of the former cast are now well-known names in the field of contemporary dance and act as directors and performers beyond Salzburg: Beda Percht, Marion Hackl, Wolf Junger and Ekkehard Hager.
One of them never let go of the play - idea, form and atmosphere: Over the past 30 years, Editta Braun, as choreographer, has developed body illusion theatre with exclusively female cast and almost naked bodies with her own company, constantly reinterpreting it in new contexts. Lufus became Luvos and was readable as a commentary on frightening excrescences of genetic engineering, as an evocation of fascinatingly enticing underwater worlds, as an independent expression of the thoughts and feelings of a concert pianist. The Luvos beings were humanoids, plants, worms, monsters, abstracts.
In 2019 Editta Braun returned with three dancers from the company to the country where it all began. "Fanghoumé", in contrast to the previous productions of the "Luvos" series, performed in full-body costumes and provided with music by Thierry Zaboitzeff, which also feeds on the various previous works, in a way concentrates the aesthetic and content-related "Luvos" stations from three decades. The perfection of the dancers experienced in this particular technique makes "Fanghoumé" a kind of climax and perhaps the completion of a movement research whose foundation stone was laid over thirty years ago in Africa.
«Fanghoumé»
