Beyond these fractured presents
Installations and performances
For Tessenow’s Festspielhaus in Hellerau, curator Yasemin Keskintepe has developed a concept entitled “Beyond these fractured presents” with the artists Cécile B. Evans, Polina Medvedeva & Andreas Kühne, Johanna Bruckner, Lamin Fofana and Makan Fofana & Hugo Pilate. Evans, Polina Medvedeva & Andreas Kühne, Johanna Bruckner, Lamin Fofana and Makan Fofana & Hugo Pilate. The unifying themes of the individual installation works by these artists in the Spero Hall, the two corner salons and studios, and also the corresponding performative works in the Great Hall of the Festspielhaus, are forms of collective gathering that suggest a different social interaction between people and the environment and thus want to represent models for other futures.
Part of the curatorial concept is a cooperation with the Palucca University of Dance: students of the university are present throughout the festival with an improvisation piece that challenges the audience’s awareness of space and being. Located between the various exhibition and performance venues of the projects of “Beyond these fractured presents” in the corridors of the Festspielhaus, this performance unfolds dynamically and creates shared spaces of experience. Movement and gaze are redirected in small interactions between audience and dancers to create moments of connection.

9-channel multimedia installation
2022, 55 min.
Nancy Spero-Saal
Cécile B. Evans’ work Future Adaptations restages the Industrial-era ballet “Giselle” as an eco-feminist thriller. Presented in four films across nine channels, the story unfolds as the protagonist and her friends flee from a deepening climate and energy crisis to the countryside, where they envision to reset society. The process of adaptation itself becomes the focal point of the work: the struggle for a future is told from multiple realities and shifting perspectives that grapple with the complex incoherence of change. As the modern world surrounding the making of the adaptation collapses, the power of unfixed identity, along with continuously shifting ideas of community and time lead an illegible revolution. Future Adaptations is a proposition for multiplicity as a strategy for survival.
Feel free to visit the associated conversation of the installation
Foto: Cécile B. Evans
1.
Cécile B. Evans
A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle
2019
8:49 min
HD video
Supported by Balmain, Paris
With additional support from Forma Arts
Production Rachel C. Clark, Bill Bellingham
Director of Photography Deepa Keshvala
Sound design Joe Namy
Additional Music with Mati Gavriel
Costumes Ella Plevin
Performances by
Alexandrina Hemsley, Giselle
Rebecca Root, Bertie (Giselle’s mother)
Lily McMenamy, Leonida
Viktoria Modesta, Myrthe
Real time voice cloning toolkit, Albrecht
Villagers/Willis: Valerie Ebuwa, Becky Namgauds, Olivia Norris, Seira Winning
2.
Cécile B. Evans
Notations for an Adaptation of Giselle (welcome to whatever forever), 2020, 27 min
Courtesy the artist, Galerie Emanuel Layr (Vienna), and Chateau Shatto (Los Angeles)
Commissioned by the Centre Pompidou and curated by Caroline Ferreira for MOVE. With support from Cork Street Galleries. Additional support and thanks to: Yuri Pattison, La Salle de Bains (Lyon), Forma Arts, Gentle Energy Audio Hire & Engineering, Personal Improvement Ltd, Phocealys, Galerie Emanuel Layr, Château Shatto, and the Bristol BioEnergy Centre (UWE) for providing microbial fuel cells.
Produced by Bill Bellingham
Production Assistant Johan Reddersen
A/V & System Programming Jelena Viskovic
Interface & System programming Thomas Lawanson
Rehearsals Manager Anna Clifford
Composer Paul Purgas
Music with Hinako Omori
Vocals Ms. Carrie Stacks
Sound Design Joe Namy
Script Support Sophia Al Maria
Additional Visuals Deepa Keshvala
Costumes COTTWEILER
Performances by
Alexandrina Hemsley, Giselle
Lily McMenamy, Leonida
Sakeema Crook, Myrthe
Rebecca Root, Bertie (Giselle’s Mother)
and special guest Sophia Al Maria
3.
Cécile B. Evans
for a Future Adaptation of Giselle (Willis’ battle of whatever forever)
2021, 7min
Commissioned by Kistefos Museum (NO) and Ballet National de Marseille & (LA)HORDE
Curated by Martha Kirszenbaum
With additional support from Ecole Nationale Danse de Marseille, Friche de l’Escalette, and Forma Arts
Special thanks to Kaja Brych (production), Emilie Gillot (production), Nicole Murru (costumes), and La Ville de Marseille
Camera: Yuri Pattison
Additional Camera: Prune Brenguier
Production Assistance: Laure Bruno, Johan Reddersen
VFX, Bacteria swarms: Otàvio Lima, Ronaldo Pucci
Animation: Johan Reddersen
Music: Joe Namy, Hinako Omori, Paul Purgas, Ms. Carrie Stacks (vocals)
Sound design: Joe Namy
Catering: LIMMAT
Featuring performers from Ballet National de Marseille (LA)HORDE and Ecole Nationale Danse de Marseille: Rita Alves, Mathieu Aribot, Nina Laura Auerbach, Malou Bendrimia, Yaëlle Chassin, Mélissandre Cirre, Andrea Claudel, Maude Courdent, Marie Couturier, Shynna Kalis, Lola Mérieux, Hugo Olagnon, Justin Patfoort, Tomer Pistiner, Leonard Vo Tan
With appearances from: Sakeema Crook, Alexandrina Hemsley, and Echo Mari Maxima Pattison-Evans
4.
Cécile B. Evans
Future Adaptations (an understudy for Giselle), 2022, 12min30sec
Commissioned by Ulsan Art Museum
Curated by Yoojin Kang with assistant curator Saehim Lee
Camera: Caroline Le Hello, Yuri Pattison, Deepa Keshvala
Camera Assistance & Gaffer: Yousef Harrous
Additional Camera: Cécile B. Evans, Echo Pattison-Evans
VFX and animation: Johan Reddersen, Ted LeSwer, Otàvio Lima
Zoloft/Makita commercial animation: Ciara Berlin
Production Assistance: Asma Barchiche, Johan Reddersen
Additional Research Assistance: Asma Barchiche
Artist Liaison: Kye Sung Lee
VFX, Bacteria swarms:, Ronaldo Pucci
Music: Joe Namy, Hinako Omori, Cherish Menzo
Sound design: Joe Namy
Performances by:
Giselle: Cherish Menzo
Giselle’s Mother: Rebecca Root
Plant/Director: Cécile B. Evans
Camera: Yuri Pattison
Era (baby): Echo Pattison-Evans
Era’s voice: Kristina Yuen
Script Doctor: Sophia Al-Maria
With special thanks to: the original cast and crew, Ateliers d’Art des Musées Nationaux de France (Ateliers d’Archives Moulages), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bristol BioEnergy Lab UWE for providing microbial fuel cells, Phocealys, Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, Clara Felicitas Pohl, LAYR Galerie, Chateau Shatto

2019-2022
Mixed media installation
Studio West
The installation The Informals / Неформалы is a preview of the performance under the same title, which will take place on 28.09. during HYBRID Biennale. It is an algorithmically triggered continuous stream of a selection of the textual, sonic and visual material.
The work is partly an autobiographical work, partly a universal statement on the notions of decentralisation, collectivism, and non-conformist ways of living in the digital age. In order to escape the norms and social constructs of the North of Russia, young people in Murmansk gravitate to deserted spaces in their area, where, by collectively improvising with the space, they change its function and add a new layer to its history. The artists traveled back to the Murmansk region where Medvedeva was born and through documentation and field improvisation collected material which – divided into elements and prepared for live triggering and processing – is algorithmically re-assembled.
Feel free to visit the associated performance of the installation
Foto: Polina Medvedeva and Andreas Kühne

2022
HD Video, 17 Min.
Ecksalon West
Flamboy X Ray interrogates the relations between the human body, coal and technology and investigates their interrelations within the frameworks of trans-corporeality. This work is based on artistic research on the molecular and corporeal power of coal, a fossil fuel which is created through the chemical reaction of decayed plants, water, and heat. The work looks at how fossil fuel is a driving force of desire, which has social as well as ecological implications. Simultaneously, this desire opens itself to the possibility of human and more-than-human entanglements within imaginations of post-digital fertility.
Produced with the kind support of the Bundeskanzleramtes Oesterreichs, Neustart Kultur, the cultural department of the city of Zurich, and the Jan van Eyck Academie and in cooperation with the New Now Festival.
You are welcome to visit a performance by the artist.
Foto: Flamboy X Ray, video still, Johanna Bruckner, 2021-2022

2022
Mixed media installation
Ecksalon Ost
The project Banlieue du TURFU aims to challenge how banlieues are perceived by its inhabitants and outsiders (banlieue is a French term for suburbs or hoods, and TURFU, is French slang for future). The project sets out to prototype different forms of society and interaction to change the general narrative around banlieues.
Out of this larger project emerges the installation The Internet of Chichas, which explores how the chicha bar, a common hangout destination in the banlieues across the world, might become a place of debate and collective dreaming thanks to its telepathic chichas. Through the vapor emitted by these devices, individuals can communicate across the cosmos the most elusive of aspirations. Like the smoke, the dreams, and visions emerge, shift, dissipate, with unprecedented sensorial tangibility.
Comissioned by Hellerau – European Center for the Arts.
Feel free to visit the associated performance of the installation
Foto: Makan Fofana & Hugo Pilate

2022
Sound installation, 29 min.
Studio Ost
Where do we go from here? The future is uncertain. The road is constantly changing. Our encounters with the world compels us to experiment and create new concepts and things that will help us imagine a different existence, a way out of the turbulence and brutality.
Shafts of Sunlight is an open-ended improvisatory performance-installation with fragments and debris from stretched out studio sessions. It is a disruption of the linearity of historical time, what historian Robin D. G. Kelley alluded to as “blues time – it is simultaneously in the moment, the past, the future, and the timeless space of the imagination.”
Feel free to visit the associated conversation of the installation
Foto: Taliesin Gilkes-Bower

2022
Students of the Bachelor of Arts for Dance at the Palucca University of Dance Dresden are present throughout the HYBRID Biennale with an improvisational piece that challenges the audience’s awareness of space and being. Situated in between the stages of Hellerau, this performance dynamically unfolds and creates common spaces of shared experience. Movement and gaze are redirected in small interactions between audiences and dancers to create moments of connection. By interrupting the continuity of flows the dancers allow for a different navigation of space that lays emphasis on interpersonal relations.
Schedule
Fr. 21.10.
18:30 – 19:00
19:30 – 20:00
Sa. 22.10.
18:30 – 19:00
19:30 – 20:00
So. 23.10.
14:30 -15:00
15:30 – 16:00
Fr. 28.10.
18:30 – 19:00
19:30 – 20:00
Sa. 29.10.
18:00 – 19:00
So. 30.10.
14:00-15:00
Foto: Palucca University of Dance Dresden
Meier, Chloé
Short, Patrick
Navarro, Luccio
Gerhardt, Florian
Yoon, Yeowon
Rinehart Beer, Catherine
Voitoux Puigrenier, Simon (Ersatz)
Aubé, Giulia
Ibánez Aguilera, Julia
Orea, Selena
Demiotis, Michalis
Kirkwood-Collins, Haylee
Vaughan, Emily
Hartland van Driel, Laura (Ersatz)