| What does dance want from film, what can film do for dance? Both disciplines are space and time, that much is certain. In terms of the aesthetics of reception, he sees more similarities between film and dance than between dance and theater, says Micha Purucker, who has been intensively involved with the interplay between choreography and film direction for forty years. He often shows his dancers films to get them in the mood. He takes the stage space like a film set, and when Corona came along, he handed over his productions to a sophisticated camera traveling, which he himself directed as the third protagonist on stage. Judith Hummel recently explored her origins in the documentary-choreographic triptych “Where do I come from?”. She combines the body with language, walking with standing, posing with pausing. For her, movement comes from everyday life, flows over into consciousness, connects with thought and space. This is not necessarily the stage space. Judith Hummel is almost more interested in the natural setting of a movement: the street, a playground, a cellar. Stephan Herwig, known for his abstract stage pieces, transports the dancing body into various environments in his most recent work, placing it in perspective with the camera, capturing it in close-up and releasing it again in the long shot. A forest and an underpass create different moods – this is only possible in the cinematic representation. |
Micha Purucker: housing the temporary
Micha Purucker
Choreographer and film fan for 40 years. His approach: physical, situational, atmospheric. Since the 1980s, he has created film works in Super8, 16mm, 35mm and digital formats, which are used in performances, installations and streams. He is a founding member of Tanztendenz München.
Choreographies (selection)
Failed ascension 1986 | A fall from grace 1988 | How to destroy angels 1989 | Bodymapping 1995 | we believe in miracles … 2003 | message from oxygene 2007 | enfleshings after lassnig, maria 2009 | radio luma : into the night 2013 – 2014 | news garden / private echoes 2011 – 2015 | „nocturne – SAMPA – durch die fenster der nacht“ 2016 | flat rooms – flat dances 2021 | threads + knots 2021 | terrain vague 2022 | 100.80.40 – rats in the living room / études pathétiques 2023 | BABOU – slices of space + time 2023 | episodes of glam + gutter 2024
failed ascension
Micha Purucker
1986
16mm | s/w | 11 min (short version)
European Art Media Festival Osnabrück 1988
DOP: Hanno Kampffmeyer
a dystopian but poetic atmospheric picture from the federal republic of germany in the mid-eighties. people, like bats, like cockroaches, swarm out and find themselves in a labyrinth. parachutists fall from the sky, people forgive each other …
rede im erdloch (speech in the ground’s hole)
Micha Purucker
Tanzplattform Berlin 1994
Videoloop
DOP: Rainer Michaelis
choreography to a speech by helmut schmidt. to be watched in the parking lot of the hebbel theater on a tv set sunk into the earth and at “out of the box” at the old riem airport.
flat rooms – flat dances
Micha Purucker
2021
50 min | video stream
DOP: Micha Purucker
a choreographic relief, live.cam. without editing, past a 30 meter long wall. the camera follows a dancer along three different backgrounds and situations.
Judith Hummel: Body and Memory
Judith Hummel
Born 1982 in Freiburg im Breisgau. Studied Theater Studies in Music and Master in Contemporary Dance Education in Frankfurt am Main. Since 2009 freelance work in the field of contemporary dance, choreography and performance. Member of Tanztendenz München.
Choreographies (selection)
AKT 2014 | Papierdialoge 2025 | Wo komme ich her? 2020 – 21
AKT tracing, remembering, finding poses from Venus, Olympia and us
Judith Hummel
2014/2016
1 min
Performance: Naïma Ferré, Ruth
Geiersberger, Heidi Schnirch
DOP: Felix Pflieger
Three women of different ages reconstruct and pose in nude positions from various historical epochs up to the present day.
77 ways of walking
Judith Hummel
2022/2023
30 min
DOP: Judith Hummel
From November 2022 to January 2023, it is my routine to go out on the street from my home or place of work in the cities of Munich and Frankfurt to accompany people from my everyday environment in their walk. The question is how you would end the beginning of the sentence “When I walk…”. How differently do people walk in everyday life, in urban space? What are their thoughts and perceptions about walking? – Judith Hummel
Skizze: Menschenknäuel (Sketch: Ball of people)
Judith Hummel
2013
3 min and 8 min
Performance: Judith Hummel, Heidi Schnirch | K: Steffen Düvel
Two people intertwine to form a body sculpture in public space. Thoughts of protection, being at the mercy of others, self-assurance. How does the physical semantics change with the changing environment?
Stephan Herwig: Creation and Space
Stephan Herwig
Dancer and choreographer. 2018 Award of the City of Munich for outstanding artistic achievements in the field of dance, 2019 – 2021 option funding from the City of Munich. Member of the Tanztendenz München.
Choreographies (selection)
the sanctuary project 2006 | Somewhere 2010 | Unleashed 2014 | Monument 2015 | Schweifen 2016 | Rhythm & Silence 2019 | In Feldern 2020 | The Lovers 2021| Les Préludes 2022 | My Body Is a Monument 2022 – 24
My Body Is A Monument
Stephan Herwig
2024
2×11 min
Tanz: Anima Henn | M: Daniel Door
The solo from the piece “Monument” (2015) is a manifesto of physicality. Recurring sculptural movement patterns are anchored in space and time without leaving any physical traces. It engages in a temporary dialogue with the spaces in which it is performed. Since 2024, it has existed in two short film versions, now in a permanent, media-banned dialogue with an underpass and a forest. That is: urbanity and nature, flatness and spatial depth. When the dancer leaves the camera frame at the end, the space remains alone. The dancing body: is only a memory.