Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm
FIGURING AGE
A touching evocation of ghosts: using video recordings and precise impersonations created by the young choreographer, three dancers who have passed away are brought back to life – and with them their moving life stories reflecting the freedom of modern dance and the oppression of 20th century ideologies.
K20, Grabbe Halle
Language: English
INSTALLATION:
8. –18.6., during the opening hours of K20
The installation includes video recordings from the senior dancers’ homes and excerpts from the live performance. Entry to the installation is free of charge.
Tickets are required for the LIVE PERFORMANCES.
11.6. after the show: Audience talk with the artists and Constanze Schellow, dance scholar and dramaturg
Boglárka Börcsök leads the audience through the space and tells them about meeting Irén Preisich, Éva E. Kovács and Ágnes Roboz. She met all three women, then in their nineties, in 2015 on a research trip together with Andreas Bolm. As young women, they had all been active in the Hungarian modern dance movement. Börcsök filmed them in their apartments and watched the footage over and over again – until the three women took possession of her. Her body seems to age from one moment to the next when she imitates their gestures, posture, dance movements and voices. The audience learns that Éva started dancing because she was not allowed to be a student. And that she never performed again after 1949 because the Communist regime prohibited modern dance with its individuality and freedom of expression.
Börcsök appears slow and fragile, but full of respect and expressive power – just like the three women do when meeting the choreographer on video. ‘FIGURING AGE’ achieves an impressive encounter between vital presence and complete absence.
“A ghostly and extraordinary performance with an intense and lingering effect.”
Ditta Rudle, tanzschrift.at, 25.7.2022
Credits ›
Concept, Choreography, Production: Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm
Dancers: Éva E. Kovács, Irén Preisich, Ágnes Roboz
Performance: Boglárka Börcsök
Lighting, Sound: Andreas Bolm
Costumes, Scenography: Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm
Production Assistant: Martyna Bezrąk
English Translation: David Robert Evans
Video: Andreas Bolm & Boglárka Börcsök (Editing), Lisa Rave (Camera), Elisa Calosi (Production Manager)
Production ›
With support from Collegium Hungaricum, Atelier No. 63 – PACT Zollverein, Essen and HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.
A section of this work was devised as part of ‘20 danseurs pour le XXème siècle’ (conceived by: Boris Charmatz, Terrain). Video: With support from the Dance Heritage Fund – an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, La Musée de la Danse, Rennes and the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
FIGURING AGE is presented by the Impulse Theater Festival in co-operation with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Biographies ›
The German-Hungarian film-maker Andreas Bolm lives in Berlin. He studied at the FAMU Film Academy in Prague and at HFF Munich. His films have been seen at many prestigious festivals around the world. His short film ‘Jaba’ premiered at the 59th Cannes Film Festival and won the prize for Best Documentary Film at the Zinebi Film Festival in Bilbao. With the aid of a scholarship from the illustrious Cinéfondation Residence Festival de Cannes he was able to develop his first feature ‘Die Wiedergänger’, which premiered at the 63rd Berlinale in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section and was subsequently presented at MoMA in New York. In 2016 Bolm shot his second feature ‘Le Juge’ with the French actor and film director Jacques Nolot in the leading role. In 2018 he completed the documentary short ‘My Last Video’ about the rising YouTube star Anton “Reyst”.
Bolm’s films portray people in their social and family surroundings and explore the fine line between documentary and fiction.
Boglárka Börcsök is a Berlin-based Hungarian artist and choreographer. She studied Dance at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Austria and P.A.R.T.S. in Belgium. As a performer she has taken part in works by Tino Sehgal at documenta (13), the Stedelijk Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA. She dances in Joachim Koester’s video works ‘The Place of Dead Roads’ and ‘Maybe This Act, This Work, This Thing’ that are exhibited in museums worldwide. Börcsök performed and collaborated for several years with Eszter Salamon on her acclaimed ‘MONUMENT’ series, which was presented at the Ruhrtriennale, the Centre Pompidou, the Festival d'Avignon, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Tanz im August and elsewhere. Since 2016 she has been seen in several editions of ‘20 Dancers for the XX Century’ by Boris Charmatz/Terrain. She is currently touring with ‘Still Not Still’, a dance performance by Ligia Lewis. Boglárka Börcsök and Andreas Bolm have been working together since 2017. They created the documentary film ‘The Art of Movement’, a portrait of three dancers in their nineties from Budapest. Her performance and video installation based on the film, ‘Figuring Age’, has been presented at festivals including Moving in November in Helsinki and ImPulsTanz in Vienna, where it received an honourable mention. The production has also been selected for the Aerowaves Network’s Twenty23.