U.F.O.: Hommage Katalin Ladik

Concept, choreography, performance: Irena Z. Tomažin, Jule Flierl

Light: Gretchen Blegen

Sound: Nicola Ratti

Costume: Jean-Paul Lespagnard

Historic advisor, dramaturg: Kata Kasznahorkai

Organiser: Brigita Gračner

Production: Alexandra Wellensiek, Špela Trošt

A production by Irena Z. Tomažin + Jule Flierl in co-production with SOPHIENSÆLE (Berlin), Zavod Sploh (Ljubljana), Charleroi Danse Centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles (Brussels), PACT Zollverein (Essen). Supported by Hauptstadtkultur Fonds.

The Hungarian-Serbian poet and performer Katalin Ladik is considered the “Yoko Ono of the Balkans” and a pioneer of noise and performance art in Southeastern Europe: With the “SoundBodyPoetry” of her radical body art performance UFO Party from 1969, she shook the artistic scene at the time and established methods of experimental voice work and physical performance already in the 1970s.

In their first collaboration, German sound dancer Jule Flierl and Slovenian choreo-vocalist Irena Z. Tomažin celebrate their shared interest in Ladik's artistic position: a homage that blurs the boundaries between poetry, acting and experimental voice work, while continuing the two artists' own research into the physical experience of language and the articulation of different layers of the voice.

JULE FLIERL studied contemporary dance at SEAD-SALZBURG as well as choreography at EXERCE Montpellier and has worked as a dancer with Bryan Campbell, Martin Nachbar, Ibrahim Quarishi, Tino Sehgal, Meg Stuart etc. Flierl works with a somatic voice method, the "Lichtenberger Method". The friction between her training in diverse contemporary dance techniques and her vocal training paved the way for Flierl's choreographic works that explore voice as dance. STÖRLAUT (2018) reflects her research on Valeska Gert's sound dances of the 1920s.

IRENA Z. TOMAŽIN is a dancer, experimental singer and philosopher working in the experimental theater and music context. Her work has been the subject of analysis by Bojana Kunst (The voice of the dancer) and Sophie Herr (Geste de la voix et théatre du corps), among others, and her writings on vocal philosophy have been published in various art publications. She has released three albums: Crying Games, Taste of Silence and Lump in the throat. Her work is a consistent exploration of the non-linguistic voice as a medium in corporeal performance.

https://www.sploh.si/en/performing/projects/ufo-flierl-tomazin