CLOSEUP
On the Wall the Chalk is Written: 2nd Studio for Propositional Cinema Film Festival
Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany
September 1 - 3, 2017
Closeup is a performance by Madeline Hollander that features five professional ballet dancers from the Staatsoper Ballett Hannover and two close-up magicians. The piece uses gesture, narrative, sleight-of-hand, mis-direction and choreography to conjure the absence of the dancers’ choreography and the magicians’ typical props, with their hands becoming performative and linguistic tools. Closeup collapses two aesthetically and culturally disparate performances into a single shared space - the opera house and the magicians’ theatrical stage. The dancers go through the entirety of their rehearsal routine for their performance of the classical ballet, "Henry XIII," using only ballet’s universal sign-language. In the same space, the magicians perform their typical reportoiry of tricks which usually involve the disappearance and reappearance of objects (playing cards, dice, coins, etc.), but without any props. Combined together, Hollander sets up a choreography of movements seen exclusively through the gestures of the dancers’ and the magicians’ hands, where the performers become living scores, blueprints, and notations. The piece runs continuously from 2 - 5pm.
Performer Bios:
Davide Sioni was born in 1997 in Italy and started his professional education in Wiener Balletschule directed by Simona Noja. Afterwards Sioni went to train at the Zurich Dance Academy directed by Oliver Matz and Steffi Scherzer where he graduated in 2016, and then went on to join Staatsoper Ballet in Hannover.
Rowena Ansell was born in England where she trained at the Royal ballet school. She has performed with the Grazer Opernhaus, Landestheater Coburg and Staatstheater Schwerin and as a guest with the English National Ballet. In 2004 she became a member of Jörg Mannes’ company at the Landestheater Linz and in 2006 transferred to the State Opera House in Hannover. Ansell has worked with numerous choreographers such as, Johan Inger, Nils Christe and Mauro BIgonzetti, and participated in exhibitions at the Kunstverein Hannover collaborating with artists such as Alexander Gyöfi, Peter Holl and Jeppe Hein. Ansel holds a Master of Science in Dance Science and Education degree from the University of Edinburgh and also leads a weekly movement class for adults.
Michèle Stéphanie Seydoux was born in Zurich, Switzerland where she studied ballet and completed her education at the Heinz-Bosl Ballet Academy in Munich. Seydoux then joined the Dortmund Ballet, and was a guest at the Bavarian State Ballet in La Bayadère. From 2006, she danced at the Ballet of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Duisburg in Düsseldorf and was to be seen in "Eine Sommernachtstraum", "Romeo and Juliet", "Le Sacre du Printemps", "Giselle" and "Six Dances" by Jiří Kylián. Since 2009, she has been part of the Staatsoper Hannover and is also a yoga trainer.
Patrick Michael Doe was born and raised in Tennessee, USA. He trained with the Nashville Ballet, Nutmeg Conservatory, School of American Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet School and this is his twelfth season dancing professionally. He worked for Ballet Memphis in Tennessee, as well as Alberta Ballet in Canada. He just started his seventh season with the Staatsoper Hannover and will be reprising the role of Henry in Henry the VIII this season.
Lauren Anne Murray was born in Harare Zimbabwe and moved to Perth Western Australia in 2002. Subsequently she started her tertiary training with the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2004, where she also trained on exchange at the Houston Ballet School and the Hong Kong Dance Academy. She went on to apprentice with the Dresden SemperOper Ballet and then worked with the West Australian Ballet and finally to her current place of employment at the Staatsoper Hannover.
Gordin Winkler & Manuel Sanetra are close-up magicians based in Hannover and members of the German Magic Club. They have been performing as a duo since 2015 and have been practicing magic for about eight years and specialise in Close-up and Card magic. Winkler and Sanetra have won several national prizes, for example the speedwell of the magic club Berlin, the third prize at the German youth championship in the category “Close-up”, among others. They have also participated in both national and international magic conventions such as the World Championship of Magic in 2015, “Magic Live” in Las Vegas and the Blackpool Magic Convention, and have performed in Germany, Latvia, Italy, Great Britain and Switzerland. Winkler & Sanetra continue to develop new magic acts and write for a German magic magazine, “Magie”.
Special thanks to Jörg Mannes and the Staatsoper Ballet Hanover for their generosity and collaboration. The ballet, "HENRY VIII," by Jörg Mannes, will open September 8, 2017 at the Staatsoper Hannover.