Fractura

1. Prize of KunstSalon TheatreAward-Festival
We thank the KunstSalon, the sponsors and the team

Dance theatre about injuries and aging with Bibiana Jiménez

16. and 17. March 2023, 8 pm, Orangerie Theater

Just before the premiere in March, the virus and the measures to contain the pandemic stopped the new production; and now again: a break in the biography of the theatre and the artists. However, FRACTURA is all about the breaks, injuries and scars that can be found in an artist's biography!

At 40, most women rethink their lives and most dancers inevitably end their careers. They have experienced some injuries, pain and fractures that have left external and internal scars. Partly through violence, self-inflicted or exercised by others.

FRACTURA is a linking from Colombia/South America to Germany/Europe. A journey through the mental and physical injuries of an emigrated dancer who, facing the pain, cannot stop dancing! Biographical ruptures, injuries, scars, the struggle for identity and the role as a woman, perfection of the dance and repeated rebellions. Mentally and physically...

We all know it: at first the body is overwhelmed by pain, and after the shock, the fear is growing that something will remain of this injury, something that cannot be repaired, something that the body does not forgive and with which you have to deal with right now. One consults the doctor to get certainty and to invoke healing.

And then two worlds clash: One of them is factually precise with clear information, cool measurements and sharp images. The other is concerned with the integrity of the surface, the unrestricted mobility and life. In FRACTURA these two perspectives are juxtaposed: The life story of Bibiana Jiménez, closely interwoven with her dancing career and migration history, is shown in x-rays, live drawings by the Norwegian artist Katarina Caspersen and formerly danced parts. Again and again, the comparison with today will be made: missed opportunities, great moments of happiness and solos that gain in intensity through years of body experience and lead to touching moments.

A battle between the factual enumerations and the desire to defy transience with its decay and breakdown begins - as spectators we see both sides. An emotional imbalance in which the dancing body can only loose while the human being makes an impressive appeal against self-abandonment.

Director/concept: Andrea Bleikamp
Dance/Choreography: Bibiana Jiménez
Dramaturgy/Text: Rosi Ulrich
Co-Choreography: Sara Blasco Gutiérrez
Equipment: Claus Stump / Paula Noller
Live painting: Katarina Caspersen
Video: Jens Standke
Music: Klangwart
Music Arrangement: Sara Blasco Gutiérre
Voices: Lucia Schulz, Asta Nechajute, Silvia Petrova, Sara Blasco Gutiérrez, Katarina Caspersen
Light: Jan Wiesbrock / Peter Behle
Technical Director: Jens Kuklik
Assistant: Gina Bensch
Photos: Claus Stump
PR+ÖA: neurohr & andrä GbR

PR: 03., 04. july 2020, 20 h, 09. - 11. july 2020, 20 h, Orangerie Theater, Cologne
during the Corona pandemic situation following dates couldn't be realized: 19.3. 2020, 20 H, 20 + 21. + 22.3.2020 / 13 - 16 May 2020, 20 H, 25. - 28. november 2020, 20 h, Orangerie Theater, Cologne / 24. - 27. June 2021, 20 h, Alte Feuerwache, Köln, 3. July 2021, KunstSalon Theaterpreis-Festival, 3. Juli 2021, digitale live-program at 5. KunstSalon Theaterpreis-Festival, in TanzFaktur, Siegburger Str. 233 w, 50679 Köln, 24. June 2022, KunstSalon Theaterpreis-Festival, Tanzfaktur Köln

Fotos: © Claus Stump

Photos: © Herand Müller-Scholtes

Trailer

Full Version

Trailer-Paintings

Presse

fragility of life: a critique of the rehearsals in March 2020
"To describe Fractura as a dance solo is a little too simplistic. Rather, the 50-minute piece is a total work of art. ... It is primarily a biography of an artist, or more precisely of a female dancer, in words, music, dance, drawing and projection. That sounds complex and it is. ... The innovative use of light fascinates, but increasingly the interplay of the artistically persevering text, the musical impressions and the loneliness of the dancer on stage takes the mind. ... Thoughtfully, one remains seated in front of the monitor, quite happy actually that one does not have to expose oneself to applause now. Wehr51 has succeeded in creating a great work that touches the audience deep inside. And it's also clear that you definitely have to experience this again in the theatre. As soon as possible, but that's more of a pious hope." (Michael S. Zerban, sound track, 21 March 2020)

"Andrea Bleikamp and Rosi Ulrich tell the life of power dancer Bibiana Jiménez by using fractures, failed relationships, abortions, psychological collapses, cuts ... A dark trip into a wounded soul, staged with powerful images and sound. Hectic video images flash across the stage set, drifting more into the subconscious than the mind can classify them. From a kind of beach house Jiménez appears on stage in a crab walk: on arms and legs like a yoga bridge, the view of the world upside down. Later she patters on lace shoes for the pas de deux with crutch partners. The metal sticks grow out of her limbs like bulky extensions, seem to pull her body behind her, robbing her sovereignty. But even more brutal are the lyrics that list the wounds in Jiménez's life. A balance of pain, performed with soulless robot voices or as a multilingual chorale." (Nicole Strecker in Kölner StadtAnzeiger 6.7.20)

"A multimedia biography with live drawings (Katarina Caspersen), videos (Jens Standke), music by Klangwart and six female voices, with the radiant Bibiana Jiménez at the center: Radiant in suffering, a heroine dancing on lace and crutches, covering wounds with gauze bandages: "The body defends itself. The soul struggles." Images from the streets of Bogotá (where Jiménez comes from), the first snow in Germany, a bombardment of ballet shoes. The clinical listing of injuries, the audition, the cold staring looks of the Germans, the hut as a place of retreat and moving. And again and again humorous moments, persiflages on aspired perfection. Dance theatre that could hardly be more gripping." (Susanne Schramm in Kölnische Rundschau 9.7.2020)

"She (Bibiana Jiménez) throws herself wholeheartedly into an unusual language of movement that even goes to lace dance interludes, convincingly uses walking aids and credibly embodies the story of life's fractures told by five female speakers. This is simply grandiose. You wouldn't really want to be satisfied with the 55 minutes that the play lasts." (Michael S. Zerban, soundtrack, 4 July 2020)

A production of WEHR51, in coproduction with Orangerie Theatre, Cologne and Freihandelszone - ensemblenetzwerk köln
supported by: Kulturamt der Stadt Köln, Ministry for Culture and Science of NRW

Restart funded by: Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, dem Bundesverband Soziokultur im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR, Kulturelle und soziokulturelle Programmarbeit

1. Prize of the KunstSalon Theaterpreis-Festival