«long life»  (2021)

"The production declines life itself. (...) The approach is made exciting by the two protagonists, Cat Jimenez, born in 1986, and Myrtó Dimitriádou, born in 1947. (...) Once again, the music by Thierry Zaboitzeff has a special impact on the production and rounds it off into a coherent whole." (Heidemarie Klabacher, DrehPunktKultur, 28.06.2021)

"In the premiere it was fascinating, among other things, how the acting virtuosity of the former Toihaus-principal Myrtó Dimitriádou meets the elastic body language of Cat Jimenez, how each in her own way and yet both dance together."

(Hedwig Kainberger, SN 02.07.2021)

"In her piece "long life" Editta Braun leaves a lot of space (...) for interpretation, for fantasy and for the creation of own stories. (...) She connects the lifes of two women via crossroads where fates intersect and then immediately separate again. (...) The tree as a metaphor for timelessness that is taken up again and again and as a cross-generational point of orientation symbolises precisely these intersections between old and young, between the two women in particular and the flow of life in general." (...) "Once again Editta Braun has succeeded in creating a highly original and independent work. (...) One can thank her for the undiscovered."

("The White Room", mw, Art Box Review on https://www.kunstbox.at)

«Hydráos»  (2020)

"Body illusion theater" is what Editta Braun calls her latest play "Hydráos". For fifty minutes fantastic beings populate the entire audience space of the theater, bathed in cool green and blue, crawling, lying, standing, dancing, walking, forming adventurous figures with their own bodies.  It is disconcerting, fantastic and in places eerie. But fear gives way to curiosity about what the next figure might represent, allowing woman and man to immerse themselves in a delightful stringing together of aesthetic moments, listening in amazement to the masterful sounds created by Thierry Zaboitzeff, who succeeds in setting the colors green and blue to music in such a way that one cannot get enough of them. The three dancers Anna Maria Müller, Martyna Lorenc, Sonia Borkowicz succeed in the almost impossible. They dehumanize their figures so much that in the end one is surprised that real women's bodies are hidden in the shimmering costumes. All in all: another milestone in the very special career of Editta Braun.

No one has so persistently shaped the dance scene in Salzburg as Editta Braun. Her unbelievable tenacity, coupled with a very personal aesthetic, is only to be found in her. Editta Braun's pieces are always significant in terms of content and on the pulse of the times; she addresses the social abysses as well as the qualities that make us human beings in the first place: Love, fear, jealousy, loneliness, happiness and longing and much more. Beautifully moving bodies in beautiful pictures are not her thing. This has long since ceased to be enough for Editta Braun. She is one who can tell stories with bodies and movements, sometimes she even succeeds with non-movements. A great woman, who was and is formative for the dance scene in Salzburg. A truly great (body) illusionist. (Leo Fellinger in Kunstbox Nachlese, 19. 1.2020)

"An impressive study of life, of growing and resisting, of failure and new beginnings. An evolutionary story in just 47 minutes (...) An extraordinary evening. At the end a long and enthusiastic applause." (Markus Honervogt, ovb online.de, 22.01.2020)

"Dressed is the new naked ...In the dance scene, nudity on stage has long been the norm. Braun swims against the current again: In Hydráos the dancers wear full body suits." (Clemens Panagl, Salzburger Nachrichten, 17 January 2020)

And the audience said:

"Rarely beautiful"        "Fascinating, meditative"        "Charming and very special"      "Wonderful dancers"

30 years editta braun company (2019/2020)

"Adaptable and yet true to herself, she set trends long before the rest of the free dance world got on the train. The audience, local, national and international, appreciates this."

(Ditta Rudle in tanzschrift.at, 1.10.2019)

«Layaz» (2019)

"Exciting, as in the performance developed jointly by dancer Cat Jimenez and choreographer Editta Braun, the movement languages take over from one another. It is exciting how the stylized image of the suppressed by convention becomes an image of the self-confident modern woman. A small - only fifty minutes long - but fine work, which Editta Braun gave to herself and the audience on the occasion of her company's thirtieth anniversary in the Salzburg scene". (Heidemarie Klabacher, DrehPunktKultur, 1.10.2019)

«trails» (2018)

„No destination. Just a trail. Life.

In situations that are so big and mighty that words can’t describe what’s happening to a human being, only dance is able to express the impact of emotions, thoughts and feelings.

In “trails” the choreographies are based on such inner incidents in such a delicate and wise way that they manage to express those nameless feelings. The four dancers, in defiance of their youth, have at their disposal a broad range of means in moving and expression. The extremely sensitive and intelligent montage of stage action combined with the pictures of abandoned landscapes from Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s film and Thierry Zaboitzeff’s theatrical music creates the magic theatre moment far from any pettiness.”

Myrto Dimitriadou, theater director, founder of Toihaus Theater Salzburg

"A melancholically wonderous piece of art, pertaining beauty, sorrow and fear. (…)

A breath-taking dance piece of great merging visual and conceptual patterns that opens up the heart and mind to fresh questions of the world, and our place in it."

Mikkel A.P. Smith, writer (Oslo)

"Nikolaus Geyrhalter‘s deserted landscapes affect us deeply – particularly because they are not scenarios of a possible future but pictures of an already existing present. The dancers in persistent dynamics, in constant locomotion, without knowing if there is any destination. Again and again they hold onto each other, carry one another through extreme situations – external and internal ones. Is there hope for any arrival at all in a world which we are just yet ruining? Or will we find a togetherness that may empower or possibly even save us?"

Angela Czech, journalist

"A landscape in black and white, hazy. Long lasting shots taken out of a film. Characters enter, wayfarers, some are hesitating, others determined, some clueless, as it seems. Silhouettes.

When did the music start, so unagitated, so unreal? So coherent.

The journey the four persons on stage are making seems to be a trip to their own self, to their desires and unaccomplished wishes. They look for community and move on. Consistently accompanied by images of desolation and vanishing. And suddenly they seem to be caught in Platon’s allegory of the cave without any way to escape. And the spectators turn into shadows in this allegory.

A touching evening. The public walks out in ease, reconciled with the narrowness and fugacity of our existence."

Christa Hassfurther, theater director

"Four young, very interesting dancers: Paula Dominici, Kamil Mrozowski, Jerca Roznik Novak and Ornilia Ubisse. Exhausted bodies, dread, memories, hopes dwell in them. Abruptly the spell breaks, from despair to a frothing zest for life. Geyrhalter's overwhelming images - a cave, above a rectangle of white sky shimmers. The freedom, the danger, a dancer storms off, the three others catch their jump. (...) No easily consumable, a good and necessarily disturbing prelude with Tanztage-Labor". (Christian Pichler, Oberösterreichisches Volksblatt)

"It is an emblematic performance, carried by expressive images, whose maelstrom gradually unfolds and occasionally demands patience from the viewer, letting him feel being lost and desorientated himself. Where no path leads to the goal, compassion seems to be the last resort. Conclusion: A visually powerful, thoughtful performance about a journey through a nothing that tells of the value of humanity and cohesion." (Karin Schütze, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten)

«Close Up 2.0» (2017)

"What do the bodies remind me? The description of the show says lemurs. Perhaps... Moving mushrooms? Hardly. And then, I remembered a creature from Estonian literature and animations who seemed to fit perfectly. Poku. Pokus are silent and fast, strange but friendly, coy but comical. Exactly like the bodies next to the eclectic soundtracks of Cécile Thevenot.

When the mere idea of postmodern esthetics, eclectic and sometimes dissonant pinao music, contemporary coreography and the pokus meeting is intriguing then being witness to the reality of such situation  exceeds everyone's expectations and hopes. At least it did to my expectations."

Oliver Issak, theatre researcher

Kaisa, 30: "It's their third production I've seen and they still keep me surprised. Very powerful"

Mart, 41: "Beautiful! That's all. No more words needed."

Iiris, 16: "How special human body can be! How capable of... everything!"

«LoSt» (2016)

"Smooth surfaces, physicality

"An intense dance experience, high physical presence of Heitzinger and Murillo, wild and grotesque theater, magic of movement, a delighted audience."

(Christoph Pichler, Upper Austrian People's Journal, April 23, 1919)

Love in times of digital cholera - Choreographer Editta Braun is searching for lost happiness

"(...)Johnny is 32 years old and he is searching for the one great love. Trained by digital  dating platforms he describes his demographic characteristics: Dating apps have been measured men and pushed his abilities in self-marketing. But what is happening apart from that?

At tanze_house festival choreographer Editta Braun from Salzburg presented the Austrian premiere of „LoSt“.  (The title is an acronym of the word „Love Story“.)

In this piece being loved and being lost are directly related to each other. Protagonists Iris Heitzinger and Dante Murillo are hounded. An accidental encounter at a newspaper kiosk stops them. Does it pay off to halt? Fascination and reservation are coming together. The choreography draws clearly like two seekers are lost in a world which outstrips itself nonstop.

What is love in a time of digital cholera?  Is it possible to be together under the constant pressure to define yourself in order to find an own Nirwana in the idea of self-realization?

The duo is presenting itself as a dance of two prime numbers. They  are searching a common denominator uselessly.  The thrill of ecstasy is followed by a bashful awakening. The nearness is awkward.

What´s left is a tentative desire for togetherness.

Good old humor works as an icebreaker – admirable overdrawn by the music of Thierry Zaboitzeff.

Braun keeps close to nowadays feeling of discomposure. She connects old and new patterns of realtionship seamlessly and amusing.

The interaction between Iris Heitzinger and Dante Murillo is awesome“.

(Verena Schweiger in Salzburger Nachrichten, 21.10.2016)

International Prize for Arts and Culture of the City of Salzburg for Editta Braun December 2014

«CLOSE UP» (2015)

„My highlight of the evening, festival and most likely one of the best dance works I will see in 2016 was Editta Braun company’s ‘Close up’. The work starts powerfuly as a writhing pile of rubble throbs to the time of AyseDeniz’s charged piano performance. Any imaginings of what lies underneath, perhaps informed by  five children and it, are surpassed. As bodiless limbs emerge from the pile, seemingly unhindered by the rigidity enforced by the rest of the skeleton, this skillful re-writing of the the female body builds a steady momentum.“ (manipulate festival blog, Christiana Bissett)

Visually, the effect of limiting the movement to hide parts of the dancers' bodies is both absorbing and unnerving. The richness of the imagery brings to mind Hieronymus Bosch's human limbs, that protrude angularly from eggs and other creatures: Braun has most viscerally brought to life the deformed and fragmented leftovers of a psyche. [ ... ]

The final encounter and touch (between dancer and musician) is satisfying, and clearly points towards a less constrained future. A gloriously tongue-in-cheek (or butt cheek on keys) piece of surreal dance invention. (TV Bomb 01.02.2016)

The body shapes created over 70 minutes by these four dancers – with lighting designer Peter Thalhamer – are extraordinary; Thierry Zaboitzeff's music is as thrilling as Gokcim's performance. And like all the best work at Manipulate, Close Up raises profound questions about the familiar shapes around us and how easily those perceptions can be disrupted, even as it also leads the pianist into an unsettling encounter with forces in her music of which she is barely aware, until they literally come to nudge her in the back.” (The Scotsman, 06.02.2016)

Across an hour, the initial impact dwindles, but the sheer stamina of the performers – and

the spurt of ensemble bopping when Michael Jackson's Billie Jean hits the keys – remains

strangely fascinating.“ (Herald Scotland 02.02.2106)

How does a dance performance and a piano concert find common ground? A pianist and a choreographer are looking for ways...(and) Surrealist Salvador Dali would have really enjoyed the result (....) The star of the evening is 27 year old pianist AyseDeniz Gockin who has gained international recognition with her inventive interpretations which link wildly different music styles. (....) a most harmonious and technically successful performance. An essential part (of the production) is provided by the outstanding lighting design of Thomas Hinterberger.

Verena Schweiger, Salzburger Nachrichten, 17.10.2015

A temperamental pianist, faceless creatures from the shadows, and the sounds which bring them to life: The impressive interaction between sound and movement fascinates the audience from the very beginning. Turkish pianist AyseDeniz and the dancers of the editta braun company tell a story with gestures, movements and dance, which becomes even more compelling because not a single word is spoken (...) Among other things the fascination of this piece arises from the space it creates and the questions it poses, questions which only can be answered in the individual imaginations of each audience member (...) Editta Braun's latest work creates a lot of space for an audience's fantasy to run riot. Most definitely it leaves a powerful impression.

Claudia Maria Kraml, DrehPunktKultur, 16.10.2015

The piece's intention - that through her playing the tragic situation of the protagonist enters the hearts of a carefully listening audience – is, without a doubt, fulfilled. You would need to have a heart of stone not to be touched.

Josef Irgmaier, pianist and composer, 16.10.2015

An alien landscape, a grand piano, a pianist. The musician concentrates, She plays. She moves herself and her audience. The landscape starts to move. It glides, it is alive. Body parts are exposed, a knee, or is it a little face? Life is awakened by the music, with the music. Mysterious creatures, monsters or aliens emerge. They shake, they flounder, they stick close to each other, seemingly astonished to be alive. They start to explore their world and each other. Staying close to the grand piano they become stronger and more confident as the music ebbs and flows around silence. The way that life outlives even the greatest silence we will all come to face.

Barbara Klein, stage director/theatre director

While musician and music ensnare each other, vexing cratures emerge. They are genderless, as their touching nudeness suggests. They slink, they crawl, they slide around the piano. They seem to adore the unsuspecting pianist, to want to be close to her. Puffing, snuffling and snorting, they nestle and roll around and up to the piano (…) The arc of suspense linking the musician's structured creativity and the seeming random movements of the teeming creatures around her challenges audiences to respond emotionally to this contradictory and indivisible interaction.

Barbara Neuwirth, writer

«currently resident in» (2013)

an unforgettable and brilliant performance - «currently resident in» in Crete

So great to see you again and to see your dance creation with Dante Murillo in DanceDays 4 Chania! It was an unforgettable and brilliant performance from concept-choreography-dance points of view ...I would love to see it again ...

Effie Caloutsis, founder of all contemporary dance movement in Crete

„The inventiveness, the simplicity of materials, and the dynamics of speech and silence during the performance contributed to a unique masterpiece. Your subject, one so complicated and common, with so many components, was delivered with humor, dignity, and strength without losing the depth, leaving the audience with intense concerns but also a delightful mood.“

Sofia Falierou, festival director, choreographer

Pleasant sun-splashed watercolors show life in idyllic poverty somewhere in the Latin American countryside: the brown moving boxes are an ideal screen, making the colors painted on them seem softer and warmer. It must be fun to build a wall by the light of the Latin American evening sun. Suddenly, the scenario completely changes. You wouldn’t even kick a dog out into the dismal, cold snow showers of Salzburg’s suburbs. And yet, Juan Dante Murillo Bobadilla lands here, even manages to get a room, if not the right to lead a life of his choosing...

As far as Anif is from Peking’s suburbs or Mombasa’s slums, so distant is Editta Braun’s solo piece from being a “tear jerker”. No cheap ingratiation to people whose fate are often so easily misused as a projection plane for naive fantasies about making the world a better place...

The dancer and performer Juan Dante Murillo Bobadilla was born in 1982 in Colombia, studied in Bogotá and – from 2006 on – at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz, where he currently teaches. Together with Editta Braun and co-director Arturas Valudskis, Bobadilla developed – based on real experiences – a solo performance that describes hope and optimism, rootlessness and disappointment, anger, rebellion and resignation.

The fact that this virtuously narrated story leaves a lot of room for humor and irony lends it the kind of detachment essential in artistic analysis. In fact, Juan Dante Murillo Bonadilla is not only a dancer and performer who is a master of contemporary dance’s movement language, effortlessly using it to portray to perfection a teenager on a fenced playground. He is also a superb actor and player who knows how to play with “language” – be it Spanish, his mother tongue or German as a foreign language – virtuously.

Indeed, most parts of the text come from Langenscheid’s “German in 30 days”. Lesson two: Finding a place to stay. Lession three: going to the immigration authorities, Lesson six: skiing. Lesson seven: looking for a job... Much of this is hilarious and interpreted by Bobadilla with an almost comic charm...

The big scene ”This is a new regulation” – a tensely built crescendo leading up to complete frenzy in the face of an indifferent world – was a highlight of the good seventy minute performance. Another highlight is the portrayal of the complete loss of speech in the face of the Kafkaesque power plays of an incomprehensive and invulnerable authority. Not only the laboriously acquired German language skills, but also verbal skills and human dignity are lost when an individual turns into an obscure number.

An outstanding artistic analysis with an up-to-date topic, a political statement, a moving evening.

Heidemarie Klabacher, Drehpunkt Kultur, Salzbug 12. December 2013

Don’t try to work in system, which is not yours…     

[...] „Currently resident in...” plays with the pain of a modern itch – the itch to run away. It deals with the desperation of being “here”, which turns into the loneliness of being “there”. The stranger enters the stage and asks “Is this my new room?” and it's as if another question shines through - “Is this my new life?” [...] We understand that somewhere there lives a woman called “Mrs. Happiness”. “Somewhere” in the stage reality, where Dante dwells amongst an empty cardboard-box world, and a dictionary. The play isn't trying to impose any limitations or to evaluate – its power is in its point of view and the frankness with which it is represented. Trying to find a perfect happiness, which by default is a variable value, we can forget who we are, where we come from, what makes us so unique that we were born in this “rotten country”. [...] The physical boundaries of the play are not limited – Dante runs around the boxes, arranges them, then destroys his arrangement. And again, and again – he creates his reality. He enters a box and we are almost fooled he'd stay there and this will serve as a sad conclusion and finale – but he goes out. And goes mad. Gradually he turns into an humanoid creature, that makes sounds. Sounds of discontent, fear and alienation. The director Editta Braun provokes us to throw away the boxes. Or at least paint them with our own colours.   Katerina Georgieva, translated from Bulgarian by Elena Doynova