Dieter Hartwig
GLADE
What if the stage were a habitat?
Taking inspiration from a forest glade - a clearing - GLADE brings the outside in. The multi-disciplinary piece transforms the stage into an immersive territory in which live lights, sound and drums emulate a natural habitat. A clan of three performers animate this landscape with their bodies, seeking shelter, composing storms and shapeshifting between human and non-human. Do we see ourselves in them? Or in their shadows?
GLADE is a study on our perception of nature through tension and minimalism. The work draws attention to the sensorial and what we cannot know, evoking the weird and the eerie.
Artistic direction & choreography: Beatrix Joyce
Dance & co-creation: Michela Filzi, Susanna Ylikoski, Savina Casarin
Choreographic assistance: Imola Nagy
Sound: Jethro Cooke
Drums: Jake Long
Lights: Lena Gätjens
Video: Vincent Jondeau
Voice coach: Rupert Enticknap
Premiered at Dock 11, Berlin as part of soundance festival 2024
Performances on 13.06 / 16.06.2024 at 7pm
Taking inspiration from a forest glade - a clearing - GLADE brings the outside in. The multi-disciplinary piece transforms the stage into an immersive territory in which live lights, sound and drums emulate a natural habitat. A clan of three performers animate this landscape with their bodies, seeking shelter, composing storms and shapeshifting between human and non-human. Do we see ourselves in them? Or in their shadows?
GLADE is a study on our perception of nature through tension and minimalism. The work draws attention to the sensorial and what we cannot know, evoking the weird and the eerie.
Artistic direction & choreography: Beatrix Joyce
Dance & co-creation: Michela Filzi, Susanna Ylikoski, Savina Casarin
Choreographic assistance: Imola Nagy
Sound: Jethro Cooke
Drums: Jake Long
Lights: Lena Gätjens
Video: Vincent Jondeau
Voice coach: Rupert Enticknap
Premiered at Dock 11, Berlin as part of soundance festival 2024
Performances on 13.06 / 16.06.2024 at 7pm
Text by Ben Knight: Shade in the Glade
Journalist Ben Knight reflects on encountering the non-human in the piece GLADE by the interdisciplinary performance group WILD ACCESS.
"It was quite an experience."
Concept
Glades are grassy, open spaces in the forest. They are spots that offer us a momentary relief from the darkness of densely packed trees. Typically evoking a peaceful, serene setting in nature, the term is historically connected to light (German: “Lichtung”) and openness.
Glades symbolize nature at its most calm, nature at its most romantic. Nature we (as humans) can feel comfortable in. They hold a promise of a utopian scenario. But what happens when this image falters? In GLADE, the performers bring us into the shadow-side of the clearing. The unknown, the ambiguous, the uncontrollable. The frame is broken and emerging from its cracks are figures channeling the senses and the non-human in sounds, solos and a storm.
Come closer and see
See into the trees
Find the girl
While you can
Come closer and see
See into the dark
Just follow your eyes
Just follow your eyes
I hear her voice
Calling my name
The sound is deep
In the dark
I hear her voice
And start to run
Into the trees
Into the trees
- Lyrics to "A Forest" by The Cure
Glades symbolize nature at its most calm, nature at its most romantic. Nature we (as humans) can feel comfortable in. They hold a promise of a utopian scenario. But what happens when this image falters? In GLADE, the performers bring us into the shadow-side of the clearing. The unknown, the ambiguous, the uncontrollable. The frame is broken and emerging from its cracks are figures channeling the senses and the non-human in sounds, solos and a storm.
Come closer and see
See into the trees
Find the girl
While you can
Come closer and see
See into the dark
Just follow your eyes
Just follow your eyes
I hear her voice
Calling my name
The sound is deep
In the dark
I hear her voice
And start to run
Into the trees
Into the trees
- Lyrics to "A Forest" by The Cure
Research
Glades in Buchenwald Grumsin with videographer Vincent Jondeau
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