29–30/9
Jumelles – Frédéric Gies & Anne Juren

What happens when two dancers and long lasting friends interpret each other through choreography? Two dancing portraits telling a story about dance, collaboration and friendship.

29/9
DOORS 18.30
ON STAGE 19.00

30/9
DOORS 21.30
ON STAGE 22.00
INCLUDES CLUB 00–04

In French, Jumelles means both “(female) twins” and “binoculars”. In Jumelles, Anne Juren and Frédéric Gies take on the task of portraying one another in the form of two twin dancing portraits: one danced by Anne Juren and choreographed by Frédéric Gies and the other danced by Frédéric and choreographed by Anne.

At the origin of this piece is the 18 years long story of artistic collaboration and friendship between the two artists. Their recurrent collaborations, their paths within dance, their common interests and their personal bond have taken the shape of a continuous process of twinning and mutualisation, which underlies Jumelles. Through the act of portraying one another, they put a magnifying glass on this process and on the historicity of their dancing bodies. In these interlinked portraits, the place of the portrayed and the portraitist are interwoven. It opens up a vast field of gazes in which the gaze is a dynamic entity involving the bodies of the dancers, of the portraitists and of the viewers.  

Anne and Frédéric’s respective choreographic works are rather different formally speaking. Yet, deep connections unite them. These connections find their origins in their love for dance and in the way this love grew through their early years within the dance field, as they were both meeting specific trends in post-modern, contemporary dance. Both artists also share a strong interest for the bodily origins of movement, which manifest in the integration of somatic practices in their work. This connects to the way they both emphasize embodiment, sensuality and the power of dance as a medium of expression. Furthermore, feminist and queer perspectives are constituent of their work.  

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Anne Juren (b. 1978, Grenoble) is a choreographer, dancer, art researcher and Feldenkrais practitioner.  She lives and works in Vienna. In 2003, she co-founded the Wiener Tanz- und Kunstbewegung association, under which she created many performances, research laboratories, choreographies and artworks. Juren’s choreographic and artistic works are shown in Europe and worldwide in dance venues, festivals, museums, and art galleries. Since 2013, Juren has been a Feldenkrais® practitioner, studying at the same time psychoanalysis and osteopathy. Since 2015, she has created a choreographic and soma therapeutic approach as an artistic platform named « Studies on Fantasmical Anatomies ». Between 2014 and 2018, she was a member of the Artistic Committee of the Master Programme in Choreography at DOCH; she is currently a guest professor at HZT/Berlin.  She recently finished her PhD at the Stockholm University of the Arts under the supervision of André Lepecki and Sandra Noeth. 

Frédéric Gies (FR-SE) is a dancer and choreographer based in Malmö, Sweden. They are the artistic director of Dance is ancient, the organization through which they conduct their projects.  Oscillating between clockwork composition and the intensities and chaos generated by dancing bodies surrendering to the desires and forces that traverse them, Frédéric Gies’ dance pieces bring to the forefront the capacity of dance to speak without having to demonstrate or represent anything. Drawing from their former training in ballet, their encounter with specific trends of contemporary dance at the beginning of the 90s, their dance floor experiences in techno clubs and raves and their study of somatic practices, Frédéric Gies approaches form as possibilities rather than constraints. Their dances weld forms seemingly foreign to each other, recycle and pervert dance history and heritages. They playfully collapse the distinction and hierarchies between erudite and popular forms of dance. Their pieces also address politics in a non-representational way. In their pieces, bodies as the instigators of movement don’t reinforce identities but excavate the complexity of their layers. Frédéric Gies’ work is also tightly connected to techno music and infused with references to clubbing and rave cultures. This is widely enabled by their long-term collaboration with the DJ and producer Fiedel. 

They started their career as a dancer at the beginning of the 90s in France, where they danced with choreographers such as Daniel Larrieu, Olivia Grandville, Jean-François Duroure, Bernard Glandier and Christophe Haleb. During this period, they started creating their first pieces, in collaboration with other dancers (Odile Seitz, Frédéric de Carlo). In 2004, they moved to Berlin and in 2006, they created the piece Dance (Praticable), which encountered international success. During their Berlin period, they also collaborated with other choreographers (Alice Chauchat, Isabelle Schad, Manuel Pelmus, Jefta van Dinther, DD Dorvillier). As they moved to Sweden in 2014, they initiated their work with techno music and started to develop and share their practice Technosomatics. They also briefly danced for Cristina Caprioli, as well as Ania Nowak.  

 Since 1996, they have created more than 30 performances, including commissions by Weld Company, DDSKS and Corpus. They present their works locally, regionally, nationally and internationally in various contexts, including dance venues and festivals, music festivals and museums (amongst others: Weld, Inkonst, Skogen, Dansens Hus, Impulstanz, CTM festival, Sophiensaele, Tanzhaus NRW, Serralves, Roskilde festival, RAS, Moving in November, Wanås, Zürich Moves, La Casa Encendida, Art Stations Foundation…). So far, they have presented their work in 21 countries.  

They also have a long history of teaching in various contexts (SNDO, HZT, TEAK, Ponderosa, DDSKS, Impulstanz…). Between 2012 and 2018, they directed the MA in choreography at DOCH-SKH. Together with Anne Juren, they were mentors for danceWEB at Impulstanz in 2021. 

The world premiere of Jumelles will be a part of this years ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival in july. One of the largest festivals for contemporary dance and performance in the world.  

Credits
Dance and choreography: Anne Juren and Frédéric Gies
Lighting Design: Thomas Zamolo
Sound Design, Composition: Paul Kotal (Turf & Surf)
Techno by Fiedel – exploited by Turf & Surf
Costumes: Grzegorz Matlag
Production management: Ambre Andriamanana (DIA), Magdalena Stolhofer (WTKB)
Produced by Dance is ancient and Wiener Tanz und Kunst Bewegung
Coproduced by Inkonst, Weld, Skogen and ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival
Residence support by MARC
With the support of The Swedish Arts Council, Region Skåne, the city of Malmö, Stadt Wien Kultur and The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.