Berlin 21.6.1996
1996
Length: 11:37 min
Dance: Torsten Haase
Camera: Klaus Dörries
Editor: Nathalie Persillier
Music: Lutz Glandien, Bert Wrede, Günther Heinz, Helmut Zapf
Camera Assistant: Martin von Bülow
The video is a mixture of a dance performance (of the dancer) and a documentation (of the reality surrounding him). All the filming took place on 21 June 1996, the summer solstice. Place and time of day were chosen at random and was only made known the day before. The musicians also produced the music in the same situation. The work was created for the installation project „VORTEX“ of Berlin video makers and musicians on the occasion of SONAMBIENTE, a Festival for Artistic sounds, Akademie der Kuenste Berlin 1996.
Conception of VORTEX: Heiko Daxl, Gerd Rische
Synopsis:
A video about Berlin in 4 episodes.
A man with a briefcase is walking though Berlin on a particular day, 21 June 1996, the summer solstice.
1. Big station
1 to 2 o’clock in the morning
Music: Lutz Glandien
At two o’clock in the morning he is moving himself up the steps in the gloomy, deserted suburban railway station. The only meeting is with people similar to himself. His self-confident walk is interrupted by dance-like movements.
2. Asparagus season
9 to 10 o’clock in the morning
Music: Bert Wrede
At nine in the morning he makes the company of people hurrying to their offices or shopping. Almost all of them are carrying briefcases or similar bags with them in a secretive way. We try, by means of a scientific method, to find out the contents of the bag. The natural movement ist stopped, the bag is enlarged as far as the smallest detail. Yet the closer we get, the less we recognise.
3. One to two back
3 to 4 o’clock in the afternoon
Music: Günther Heinz
He is moving on the street in the afternoon where no cars are allowed due to building works, other there is heavy, noisy traffic all around. He is dancing forwards and backwards or in a circle or even on the spot so that the electronic montage means he can´t only encounter himselfs and the linear continuity of time and space seems to have been removed.
4. Mon Capitaine
6 to 7 o’clock in the evening
Music: Helmut Zapf
The setting sun leads him to a quiet idyllic place in the middle of the big city at six o´clock in the evening. The flowing movements of events and objects caught by the camera momentarily calm him down. But he is soon moving again with his restless, single-minded walk.
