Ape-like and still so similar... Apes are considered as « nearly human » animals. This « nearly » makes them a projection surface. At the beginning of the 20th century in the USA two chimpanzees, Consul and Meshie, lived like humans, with humans and finished up by considering themselves as humans. Antonia Baehr and Latifa Laâbissi take on their identities. Very hairy, with easy virtues, impertinent and shameless these two female monkey humans occupy the establishment of Nadia Lauro who herself nestles apart in a quite corner of the stage. A surprising, funny and powerful contemplation about the violence of assignments.
LATIFA LAABISSI (France)
Choreographic works, installations, lecture demonstrations, pluridisciplinary collaborations: mixing genres, reflecting upon and redefining formats, Latifa Laâbissi’s work seeks to bring onstage multiple offstage perspectives; an anthropological landscape in which stories, figures and voices are placed and highlighted. Dance “codes” are disturbed by recalcitrant bodies, alternative stories, montages of materials infiltrated by certain signs of the times.
ANTONIA BAEHR (Austria)
Antonia Baehr is a choreographer, performer, filmmaker and visual artist. Her works explore the fiction of the everyday and of the theatre, among other themes. She works together with various partners, frequently in the form of switching roles: from project to project, each artist alternately takes on the role of either guest or host. Baehr studied film and media arts at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, with Valie Export (1996) and obtained a DAAD-grant and a Merit Scholarship for the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. There she completed her Master in Performance with Lin Hixson. Since 2006, she has taught as guest professor at several European colleges. She has taken part in diverse group exhibitions (re.act.feminism, Center for Contemporary Arts Estonia Tallinn, Museo de Arte do Rio, MACBA Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, et al.); in 2012 the Neue Kunstverein Gießen showed her work in a solo exhibition. From 2006 to 2008 Antonia Baehr was associate artist at the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers. From March to May 2013, The Beursschouwburg, Brussels, presented a programme comprising performances and films as well as an exhibition: “make up: at Antonia Baehr and Werner Hirsch’s table”. The works shown included those of artists who have worked over many years in various roles together with Hirsch and Baehr, as well as numerous works by Hirsch und Baehr themselves. In 2008, her book “Rire / Laugh / Lachen” was published, and “Abedecarium Bestiarium – Portraits of affinities in animal metaphors” was published in 2014. Her long-term collaborators include William Wheeler, Valérie Castan and Lindy Annis, among others, and more recently Neo Hülcker and Latifa Laâbissi. Her productions for the stage encompass “Holding Hands” (2001); “Un après-midi” (2003); “Cat Calendar” (2004), with Antonija Livingstone; “Larry Peacock” (2005), coproduced by Andrea Neumann and Sabine Ercklentz; “Merci” (2006); “Rire / Laugh / Lachen” (2008); “Over The Shoulder” (2009); “For Faces” (2010); “My Dog is My Piano” (2012); “Abedecarium Bestiarium” (2013); “The Wildes” (2014), coproduced by Keren Ida Nathan (Ida Wilde) and Henry Wilde (Antonia Baehr); "Misses and Mysteries" (2015), with Valérie Castan; "Normal Dance" (2016); "Röhrentier" (2016); "Exit" (2018); “Consul and Meshie”, with Latifa Laâbissi (2018) and “Music for Dead Animals” (ongoing series) with Neo Hülcker. In collaboration with Sabine Ercklentz, Baehr produced “Abecedarium Bestiarium. Affinitäten in Tiermetaphern”, a feature for WDR 3 that was broadcast in February 2015; and in June 2015, “Misses und Mysterien” was broadcast as a radio play on WDR 3. Baehr is the producer of the horse whisperer and dancer Werner Hirsch, the musician and choreographer Henri Fleur, the composer Henry Wilt and the aspirant New Music composer and ex-husband Henry Wilde.
