Philipp Gehmacher Vienna
in their name
Born 1975, Philipp Gehmacher grew up in Salzburg and Vienna. After spending ten years studying and working in London, he returned to Vienna in 2003. Since 1999 Philipp Gehmacher has initiated the choreographic works In the absence, Holes and Bodies, Embroyder, Good enough, Mountains are mountains, Incubator, Das überkreuzen beyder hände and Like there’s no tomorrow in collaboration with, amongst others, the performers David Subal, Clara Cornil and Rémy Héritier, the composer Pedro Gomez-Egana and the pianist Alexander Lonquich, as well as the theorists Peter Stamer and Myriam van Imschoot. In 2007, he started collaborating with Meg Stuart (MAYBE FOREVER), which was continued with the performance installation The fault lines together with Vladimir Miller in 2010. In 2008, he curated the series STILL MOVING for Tanzquartier Wien, within which he introduced the lecture performance format Walk+Talk. In 2009 and 2010, Philipp Gehmacher and Vladimir Miller created the video-installations At arm’s length und Dead reckoning together.The Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture scholarship prize, awarded for dance for the first time, went to Philipp Gehmacher in autumn 2009.
In his work, the Austrian choreographer Philipp Gehmacher poses very precise, fundamental questions – questions of dance and of general human relationships. His movements connect the dancing body with the everyday body without generating simple, representative images. Only just discernible.
How can the three performers share their states, how do they become permeable for the audience, which is not separated by a raised stage? How can they lend form to their movement and, at the same time, open up to the outside? Stand still and gaze as a means of exploring the other person – so as not to be framed, in the picture. The gesture as a sign left strewn in space. Bodies that communicate like they are speaking. Signs that communicate, express and yet only exhibit a line in space.
In In their name, Rémy Héritier, An Kaler and Philipp Gehmacher cast concepts and sentences into space like signs, they say their name as if they need to remember, as if they want to mark off a point and make sure of themselves.
NXTSTP partners: Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), steirischer herbst festival (Graz), Alkantara Festival (Lisbon)