©Boshua

Warrior

2018

 

My enemy is my fear

And it takes my breath away

So I call to fight with love, open up my heart

I call you to fight with love, open up your heart

 

Seduced by the belief that a fierce strongman, is all we need to get things done and save the world, choreographer Anne-Mareike Hess, takes us in her solo on a journey of becoming a warrior. Within a distorted and at the same time soft soundscape emerges a profoundly poetic image of human fragility and inner disruption. A dancing body caught in a perpetual fight with its emotions.


Her debut solo Warrior premiered at the end of 2018 and is the first part of a series of works that explore female identity by drawing inspiration from mythology and popular culture. Constructed as an act of resistance, the piece draws its energy from deep within the

choreographer, revealing and questioning the world we live in. Through the metamorphosis of the body and the evocative power of the warrior figure, Anne-Mareike Hess celebrates femininity in relation to strength.


Warrior is followed by the solo Dreamer in 2021 and the trio Weaver in 2023.

 

Choreography & dance: Anne-Mareike Hess

Sound design: Marc Lohr

Costume: Mélanie Planchard

Light design: Brice Durand

Dramaturgy : Thomas Schaupp

Artistic advice: Rosalind Goldberg

Vocal coach: Joséphine Evrard



This piece has been selected by AEROWAVES Twenty20

Production: utopic productions

Coproduction: Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster, Weld, Skogen

creation support: Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois - TROIS C-L, Ministère de la Culture Luxembourg

Support: Fonds culturel national Luxembourg, Fondation Indépendance, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee

Residencies: Dancehouse Melbourne (AUS), Skogen (SE), O espaço do Tempo Montemor-O-Novo (PT)

With the support of the Grand Luxe network 2017/2018/2019

© Dmitrij Matvejev

The solo "Warrior" can be presented in different versions:

- The original version lasts around 45 minutes and is to be performed on a stage, ideally in a black box.


- “Warrior – durationally unplugged” is a 1,5-2h  version of the original solo, to be performed in unconventional spaces.     This version was initially commissioned by the New Baltic Dance Festival 2021 and performed at the National Gallery of Art, Vilnius.


The piece can easily be adapted to different spaces and formats. Please get in touch for more information


Press


"It’s so refreshing to see a piece that doesn’t show ugliness as an antithesis to beauty, but rather as the outcome of deeply nuanced research. Anne-Mareike Hess accomplishes this in Warrior. In this mini post-modern opera, Hess embodies a painful, imperfect transformation into an expanded version of herself, not only through the sequential layering of oversized foam armour, but also through electrified pop-and-locks and grounded power poses. Deliberate, exaggerated breathing, beatboxing, coughing, throat-clearing and strong, activated vocals reverberate against the rafters. It’s not always comfortable to watch her box and bend, not because you’re embarrassed for her, but because the struggle is so relatable.

Maybe ugliness isn’t the right word here. The work is not ugly. Hess is not ugly. Her voice is not ugly. It’s impressive. It’s fierce. It’s vulnerable. Sometimes sad. But in the end, she’s made it through: calmer, wiser, stronger."

Zee Hartmann Springback Academy 2021 Springback Magazine 5.7.2021


“The piece hits the zeitgeist very precisely. In a world in which we find ourselves increasingly in (political) situations, where we ask ourselves: What actually happens here? Why is nobody doing anything? Not only in these circumstances, "Warrior" is a piece that tells us a lot about creating a warrior type, empowerment through the discovery of one's own voice and the constant, sometimes humorous, failure on the way there. "

Sarah Moessner Tanznetz 17.12.2019


"Warrior - with few resources, thoughtful, powerful and full of political explosive power."

Daniel Konrad Luxemburger Wort 7.12.2018

 

Warrior, the latest creation of choreographer Anne-Mareike Hess, is a phenomenal act of resistance she reveals through a metamorphosis of her body.”

 

"... the choreographer stays true to herself at the level of the radicality of her movement language. (...) For her, movement is the expression of an energy drawn from the depth of the bowels and channeled into a very constructed and controlled discourse. "

Marie-Laure Rolland for La Glaneuse 10.12.2018

 

"...the luxembourgish dancer and choreographer is one of the artists who, through her presence, instantly fills the whole spance and captivates the spectator. (...) the proof that the radiant emittance of force has nothing to do with pomp and sensationalism."

 

"Femininity itself is celebrated and put in realtion to strength."

 

"When the "fight" comes to an end it has created a noticeable intimacy between the dancer and the audience. The initially individual struggle became a common one."

Christine Mandy for Journal 10.12.2018


"Warrior turns out to be a wonderful discovery."

Dieter Hartwig for Tanznetz.de 14.2.2019



Text

"...Different from previous works, Hess surpasses the performer’s objective gaze onto
a supposed audience, and let the performing body burst over itself. There is nothing more
to hide, the fight with subjectivity has already started. In the physical excavation, she lets
the choreography surpass itself, at once pumping the body full of material - and emptying it
all out. This is a body of noisy memories, whose senses flow beyond it’s physical scape.
It’s body of the now is at war against itself...."

excerpt from the text "The body at war against itself" by Frida Sandström 

Premier

December 7th 2018 | Salle Robert Krieps Neimënster (LU)


Performances

December 8th + 9th 2018 | Salle Robert Krieps Neimënster (LU)

February 14th - 17th 2019 | Dock 11 (Berlin, DE)

February 22th -24th 2019 | Skogen Gothenburg (SE)

March 1st - 3rd 2019 | Weld Stockholm (SE)

May 18th 2019 | Festival Hors les Murs! Reims (FR)

October 13th 2019 | SIDance Festival Seoul (KR)

December 14th 2019 | side.kicks Festival Munich (DE)


April 25th 2020 | SpringForward Festival by Aerowaves, Rijeka (HR) - ONLINE

July 3rd 2020 | 3 du TROIS (LUX) - ONLINE

October 3rd 2020 | OPEN HOUSE Festival, Limassol (CY) SCREENING

November 18th 2020 | WINDOWS Festival Novokuznetsk (RU) - SCREENING


June 26 2021 | SummerReCollection Festival by Aerowaves Ljubljana (SI)

July 2nd & 3rd 2021 | "Warrior - durationally unplugged" New Baltic Dance Festival, Vilnius (LT)

September 3rd 2021 | Aerowaves Festival Luxembourg (LUX)


March 29th & 30th 2022 | BORABORA, Aarhus (DK)

August 25th - 28th 2022 | Dock 11 (Berlin, DE)


April 4th 2024 |Plateforme Chorégraphique Happy Days, Pôle Sud Strasbourg (FR)

April 20th 2024 | Want to Dance festival Taipei (TWN)


©Boshua

Instant feedback by Elisabeth Nehring in the context of Tanzforum Berlin