Philipp Gehmacher, x P.A.R.T.S. A LOT A PART A BODY / Photo Olympe Tits
20 Years of PACT
May 20–22, 2022
PACT Zollverein
Essen, Germany

On occasion of its 20 year anniversary PACT Zollverein is hosting an extensive festival with indoor and outdoor performances, artistic interventions and concerts. The programme will take place at PACT and outdoors, exploring the postindustrial landscape surrounding PACT.

Installed on the exterior façade of PACT, Tim Etchells’ neon work Shifting Ground invites the viewer to consider both literal and metaphorical meanings of the simple phrase. Shifting Ground invokes past labour on the former mining site as well as historical and present conditions of uncertainty and dilemma. At the same time, it points to the flux of the present as a vital moment of possible opportunity—as the ground shifts there are chances to find expression and understanding, new balance, and meaningful place together.

Kicking off the anniversary festival, Mette Ingvartsen celebrates the unifying, resistant power of dance with her solo-performance The Dancing Public (May 20, 8pm). Evoking collective moments of dancing manias from the past, Ingvartsen explores movement ecstasy within a social gathering. The result is a dance feast, a concert of spoken poetry, a physical frenzy to the point of complete exhaustion. Ingvartsen’s intense choreography is followed by the world premiere of The Patient (May 20 at 9:30pm and May 21 at 4pm) by Ben J. Riepe: created for an ensemble of nine performers, Riepe’s latest work evokes a literal sound body. The dancers occupy a field of tension between nature and culture, between guttural creatureliness and seemingly almost sacral iconographic moments, continuing Riepe’s performative search for a new stance of the “human creature” within nature.

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