STUDIO-PERFORMANCE - Gloria McLean | Bert Gstettner

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The director of Lifedance Gloria McLean from New York and her partner sculptor Ken Hiratsuka visited Vienna for a workshop and performance. The soloist and longtime dancer of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company gave a three day Workshop at the T*H Studios. On April 19th, together with the final workshop presentations, Gloria McLean showed two of her solo works and Bert Gstettner performed his solo end.less.bow as a studio version.

Performances & Presentations

 I AM. IT DANCES.  Gloria McLean
SLEEP DANCE  Gloria McLean  &  workshop participants
END.LESS.BOW (studio version)  Bert Gstettner

from 6 - 8pm on April 19, 2025 | Entry free donation
Followed by an easter snack and organic wines.
Tanz*Hotel | Studio 1 at Zirkusgasse 35, 1020 Vienna
Registration: office@tanzhotel.at 

Program >>>

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I AM. IT DANCES. 
Dance, Choreography Gloria McLean
Sculpture Ken Hiratsuka | Music Somei Satoh


Photos: Hanna Fasching

This piece is an excerpted version of a danced retrospective, composed of quotations and fragments of my choreography and personal dance history. Music is by contemporary Japanese composer Somei Satoh. Tonights performance is dedicated to my cousin Eunsoo Taylor.

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SLEEP DANCE & WORKSHOP STUDIES
Dance, Choreography Gloria McLean
Sculpture Ken Hiratsuka | Music Rip Hayman
Workshop participants  Julius Chromecek, Tatjana Christelbauer, Antonia Steininger, Linda Sauer, Bert Gstettner


Photos: Hanna Fasching. Bildrecht

During a three-day Workshop with Gloria Mc Lean, the participants were confronted with the principals of movement as Erick Hawkins understood and taught them in his school for dance in New York. Next to that Gloria gave us some tools to create movement studies and rhythmical sequences. Those are melting into her Sleep Dance piece - a tribute to dreams and creativity.

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END.LESS.BOW (studio version)
Performance/Choreography/Text editing  Bert Gstettner
Music  Hofstetter Kurt | Foot-/Hand-Objects  Peter Sandbichler
Texts  Erick Hawkins (For Kiesler, 1965), Reinhard F. Handl (neigung, 2024)
The premiere was 2024 at the Kunsthaus Zug (CH) as part of the closing event
of the exhibition Kiesler heute. Werkdialoge mit Zeitgenöss:innen >>>


Photos: Hanna Fasching. Bildrecht

"His mind was always roving like a free spirit in a new land"
Erick Hawkins über Frederick Kiesler

end.less.bow is a piece by dancer, choreographer Bert Gstettner. The choreography refers to two legends of 20th-century New York art and dance history: Frederick Kiesler and Erick Hawkins. The presence of their legacy, its impact and continuity builds the content of end.less.bow. 

Right after Hawkins gave a speech at Kieslers funeral service on December 30, 1965, he performed his “Endless Bow”. Bert Gstettner takes this act as an inspiration for his solo-piece and combines excerpts of Hawkins' speech with new writings and some dances. He reflects on the “Endless Bow” by addressing themes of “endlessness”, the passing on of the flame, the question of whose shoulders one can stand on and whether that is even possible. Furthermore he freely adapts from Arthur Rimbaud's “art must be reinvented, we know that.” end.less.bow >>> 

*Erick Hawkins' generation and choreography colleague from New York Merce Cunningham will be presented for the very first time by the Austrian State Ballet in 2025. You could say 20 or 30 years too late, but at least it's going to happen. Both artists began their careers in Martha Graham's dance company, with Hawkins having a great influence on Graham and vice versa, as they were also a artist-couple. Erick Hawkins' outstanding choreographic work is unjustly underrepresented today, despite a remarkable oeuvre of consistant musical collaborations. He also established a dance technique based on “free flow”, that is still taught in New York and at many universities. Bert Gstettner was a student of Erick Hawkins. www.erickhawkinsdance.org | marthagraham.org | www.mercecunningham.org 

www.gloriamcleandance.com | www.kenrock.com