Abtnaundorf
A performative Videointervention and publication.
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Illumination Sites
Interactive archive containing performance videos and images. To be presented in July 2013.
Pausa Neon Krise
2 channel Video installation presented in May 2013 in Galerie KUB Leipzig
Posted soon.
Video, camera: Melody Panosian
Performers: Melody Panosian, Tova Darling
Location: Marseille, France 2012
content f(x)=#025 (Live-Malen in Modul8 + Drucken und Montage)
Documentary photo: Jakob Wierzba
www.jakobwierzba.de
Live-Painting, Photo, Prints, Montage: Melody Panosian
Other things
Paintings / Open studio, 2-19 July 2012 Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig
Photo (1-10): Jacob Wierzba
http://www.jakobwierzba.de/
Performer, paintings, drawings, objects, metal table, video: Melody Panosian
Location: Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig
Wenn die Bilder Dinge sind, ist der Akt des Malens Etwas Anderes. Während der
Ausstellung Other things verwendete ich die Galerie als Mal-Atelier. Vier Monate vor
der Ausstellung begann ich zu malen. Mich interessierte was ich zum Malen brauchte:
Keilrahmen, Klebeband, Pinsel, Pigmente und so weiter. In meinen ersten Bildern sind
diese Gegenstände Motive.
Other things als etwas anderes als die Beziehung zu einer neuen Technologie. Other
things als kulturelle Einflüsse. Aber auch Other things wenn Malerei exotisch wirkt.
Der Regelmäßige Galerie-situation für Malerei ist die betrachtenden Subjekt und
Kunstwerk als Objekt. Aber in erfahrung ist ein teil alle austellungen/ Galeriesituationen
Interaktiv.
Im Atelier in der Galerie werde ich nicht zur Malerin sondern bleibe Medienkünstler.
Freunde aus der Malerei fanden meine Nicht-Bilder unangemessen, für die
Medien-/Performance-Künstler war ich Malerin – genau weil ich den Akt des Malens
ausführte.
Medienkunst untersucht die Werkzeuge und das Medium – die Handlung, die Zeit, den
Raum und die Verwendung des Werks.
Der Besucher stellt Verbindungen zwischen den Objekten im Raum her und wird sich
dieses Prozesses bewusst, da die Objekte aus verschiedenen Positionen erfahrbar sind.
Im ausgestellten Atelier erhält alles im Raum die gleiche Bedeutung: je größer es ist,
desto mehr Abstand wäre nötig. Körperliche Beteiligung wird unvermeidbar. Der
Besucher taucht in den Mittelpunkt ein. Other things ist ein Raum in sich selbst und
nicht von Dingen umgeben. Other things sind die Spuren des Besuchers, seine Position
im Raum. Die Spuren des Arbeitstages.
Other things nähert sich einer performativen Situation. Die Bilder werden nicht autonom
sondern bleiben Kreationen des Prozesses.
Was ist Malerei? MEINE Frage war, was ich mit der Malerei als Medium zu tun könnte
und was macht ein offene atelier Situation mit dem Raum und umgekehrt, was hat den
ausgestellten Raum mit den Gemälden zu tun.
- Melody Panosian, 19 September 2012
schiebdieponiesdurchdiegegendundbuersteihnendiehaare
2 Pony-Frauen, freibeweglich im Raum / Stille Objekte, die darauf warten gekämmt und benutzt zu werden / interaktive Performance 2 x 20min.
Makeup artist: Anett Weber
http://www.anettweber.com
Performers, costume: Tina Macha, Melody Panosian
Vehicular: Melody Panosian
Camera: Marcus Nebe
Video: Melody Panosian
Photo: Stefan Riebel
Location: Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig
Stille Objekte, die darauf warten gekämmt und benutzt zu werden.
Subjekte, die auf die Zuwendung die man ihnen zukommen lässt reagieren.
Was machen wir hier, 2 Ponys
Ihr schaut uns an. Wir sind liebenswürdig, unschuldig und weich. Wir sind Spielzeuge, die benutzt werden wollen. Wir möchten gekämmt werden. Ihr dürft uns auch rumschieben.
Unser Charakter und Aussehen laden dazu ein freundlich zu uns zu sein, was uns
möglicherweise schützt. Vielleicht auch nicht.
Wenn Menschen mit uns und unseren Haaren spielen erwacht unsere Sinnlichkeit und unsere Sehnsucht nach Genuss und Liebe. Es entsteht eine Beziehung zwischen uns. Wir beurteilen Euch. Wenn Ihr uns verlasst, hinterlasst Ihr uns mit einer sinnliche Erfahrung.
Wie tot sind wir, wie tot sind unsere Haare
Wir sind nicht selbstmotiviert, aber wir reagieren auf das, was uns widerfährt – wir haben ein Bewusstsein. Wir können nicht mit uns selbst spielen.
Wir erlauben jedem uns zu kämmen. Wir verwahrlosen, wenn Ihr uns nicht kämmt. Unser Haar wächst nicht nach, deswegen müsst Ihr uns besonders vorsichtig kämmen. Was bringt es Euch uns zu kämmen? Lösen wir eure Problemen während Ihr unsere
Haare kämmt? Haare kämmen ist wie Probleme lösen, das Chaos der Knoten entwirren und das Haar kann wieder fliessen – ein Akt des Ordnens.
Bateau Ivre Horses
www.bateau-ivre-horses.blogspot.com
We (Melody Panosian aka Swimsuit Tissue and Florentina Holzinger aka Miss Roboto) are not expressing ourselves on the blog, we are role playing, playing out an idea of an intimacy that is supposedly absent on Internet. Writing postcards was not less public and when we blog there is even a performative act in our awareness of the 3rd reader/spectator.
The blog is our refuge as people. Disconnected geographically and communicating independently. When independent of time and space, the form we use is open, even tough we like to think of the conversation as a dialogue, as you always write for someone else. We believe we are poets of the now, of the moment. Our poetry will never be neither accurate, nor concise, so there is no aim for the creation of meaning.
We don’t intend meaningfulness, morality or a hierarchical structure. We like to think of it as “automatic blogging”, based on a very intuitive approach to the creation of words, of the method of putting words together, in rows, underneath each other.
The image can be more important than the meaning of a particular word. The image can be there because of how it looks. Of course the words we use will then create a certain meaning because we like to be dramatic and lyrical of course. I like being a composer of possibilities and an interpreter of my own and of my opposite and recipient. The blog is free to be interpreted to the individual desire of the particular spectator.
The blog also serves the fictive creation of something “bigger than yourself”. The state of me, as a singular being, a private home-grown person is neither intellectual, wise or mystical, nor the fantasy figure of an artist. Even though we can be all of that, we like to dress up as smart fashion princesses. So we can be all of that on the blog, thus wisdom can be found on the blog.
Swimsuit Tissue offers Miss Roboto wisdom in exchange of understanding, vice versa. Understanding is crucial and immanent – it is the unspoken qualification. The blogger is herself the guru, we are gurus to each other.
Our blogging is non therapeutical because there is no emphasis on healing and it does not function as a medicine, a drug or placebo, even though that effect might occur. In fact, our work stabilises us and we can utilise our suffering for the sake of blogging. It is like we are playing dolls with each other and the dolls substitute for undigested items in our environment.
The blog is fictional, as well as any names mentioned. Miss Roboto and Swimsuit Tissue are playing diary together. The blog serves the amplification of our constructed selves – it is channel and vehicle.
About badness:
In general we believe in the quality of the badness in our life and work. This is an essential theme that we have been interested in and working on for years. We want to investigate badness and its temptation. We accept that the blog’s badness is necessary for its existence and that it is forever the very source of inspiration and very much a filter for us to look at the world: its animals and aliens. The representation of our reflection of it all – is the blog.
The blog’s relation and reference to badness is crucial for its existence. It is a source of inspiration that allows us to grow and take any form we or you want. The blog itself reveals our intentions and desires for the blog, the image we want it to communicate, if there is one.
About beauty:
Of course it is a blog about beauty and in the end that is what we always wanted to achieve. Every written word aims for beauty, every arrangement is aware of its form. We ourselves, strive for beauty and harmony. That is our aesthetical choice. Beautiful things are easier to look at. The badness is necessary so we don’t get overlooked, misunderstood or categorised. (Or understood even).
We like:
Haiku, rhymes, rap, songs, stories, biographies, documentaries, all artists, all assholes, money, men, bad performance. (Dykes). This contains all that we currently do.
Photosession, Pedro 27 Barcelona Spain
” I think the irony of the tattoo is genius. When Melody, years later and as a woman, takes over Tupac Shakurs legendary “Thug Life” tattoo, creates an openness towards the flexibility and fluidity of identity. We have to create motives and paths for ourselves. To embody and claim reflects the time we are living in. By giving value to something by our own initiatives, lies the personal within the political and vice versa. “
- Karina Sarkissova , 6 May 2012
Performers: Melody Panosian, Florentina Holzinger and
Pedro, 27 from Barcelona, Spain
Camera: Florentina Holzinger
Location: No Pain No Brain in Berlin, Germany 2011
HEMA, a music video for Wello music
Video, performer, costume, camera: Melody Panosian
Camera: Karin Kajsa Gustafson
Location: Visby, Gotland and HEMA in Amsterdam, Holland
Orte
Arthur Rimbaud Monument, Marseille
Video, camera: Melody Panosian
Location: Arthur Rimbaud Monument, Marseille 2011
Augustusplatz, Leipzig
Video, camera: Melody Panosian
Performers: Streetmusicians
Location: Augustusplatz, Leipzig 2011
Tempelhof, Berlin
Video, camera: Melody Panosian
Performer: August Zachrisson
Location: Flughafen Tempelhof, Berlin 2011
Photosession, The Ballet Artbomb
http://www.artbomb.nl/page/5448
Direction, costume, performer: Melody Panosian
Camera: Florentina Holzinger
Location: The Amsterdam Music Theatre, Amsterdam 2011
What kingdom. Of all damn human. Animals. Nothing important
” In the Spinnerei, Leipzig the bare bruised walls signal the end of the industrial era in Western Europe. This place formerly so loud, was left empty and silent. Here Melody Panosians performance What kingdom. Of all damn human. Animals. Nothing important takes place.
The artist, arranged a space with carefully selected objects that find a use during the performances but actually (above all when there is no performance but only the installation) invites the spectator to guess what they could mean.
When she is performing the artist changes clothes and in particular wears what could be an « African costume » (self-made from a colored printed cloth) and a « futuristic costume » (blue and skin-tight) which contrast with each other and are brought to life by the artist’s body.
These costumes bring back a lot of feelings. The « African » pattern evokes another continent and perhaps another time (is it the past?) It appears to be loose-fitting, natural and noble. The colors stand out against the grey/white concrete walls of the Spinnerei. In Wassily Kandinsky’s theory of colors, red or yellow are associated with movement, and white with immobility . As for the « futuristic » costume, it is more reminiscent of 20th century science-fiction movies where humans would have left the earth…
The result (what we can see during the performance) could be summed up as follow: a woman, alone in a free empty place, convokes distant worlds to coexist on stage for a few minutes. Her strength is memory, dream, imagination. With the help of costumes and of the whole performance choreography, she creates with refreshing energy her own visual world. “
- Antoinette Belin, 30 May 2012
tape in camera standing on tripod, direction wallpaper, floor and red eggs in a fish bowl.
i come in talking about the space, ” i have some sort of objects in a room with 3 walls i cannot get it all together, i am pretending like no one will notice the evident ” then i make the audience repeat my name King together, until it sounds loud enough they keep on repeating my name my right hand is formed and heavy and i walk cross steps and my head circles around my torso, ” louder…louder! ok enough ” i get the plastic guitar put it between my legs as tail i go to the floor look at their standing feet. like a dog, right hand hurts on dog. i put on the speech (invitation text) which rejects them as audience ” i take every opportunity to take revenge upon you ” then i get into holy mary plastic vail swimsuit costume and out of house wife costume. in holy mary plastic vail swimsuit now i need someone from the audience ” i need a favor, concerns milk, it is fun “. I put on King video on my mac, it is a music video for Jazz Jam. pours milk on me while i am upside down. acrobatics with legs and feet. putting coal on my feet and hands like sport. wall is dirty now. then i put eggs with back to audience in my swimsuit red eggs in stomach pink water coming down between my legs looks like i am menstruating or peeing. becomes pink lake with the milk on floor. i go to the front again, remove the stop sign in front of the camera on my way…
lay down leg spread backwards…demonic and very flexible. crush the red eggs, while a song for me is being played a song about gifts. the eggs come out of my swimsuit close to vagina and neck crushed red eggs come out of my swimsuit close to vagina and chest too. i massage the crushed eggs into my skin. now when the song Les étoiles et les cochons is playing i undress…yes naked under i am wet. change into queen exotic dress while the dress is lying horizontal on the floor; legs spread and my flesh. fabric feels very nice against my skin, i spread my limbs on floor. i come up and dance in triangle shape; dance is only crossed steps that also make me twirl. after the song Les étoiles et les cochons is finished comes 30 min of filming that i clean up the space with a crown. ” i need a favour, concerns filming, it is fun ” some one from audience films every last 30 min of each performance. i want each time to be different. cleaning up takes time. with crown. different interactions happen every performance: on one occasion 2 other performers from another show came in and i asked them to join.
and i take them in. i want to be alone now. you may leave when you feel like. tape finishes.
Kindly supported by Swedish Arts Grants Committee
Posthumous; What kingdom. Of all damn human. Animals. Nothing important
tape in camera standing on tripod, direction wallpaper, floor and red eggs in a fish bowl.
i come in talking about the space, ” i have some sort of objects in a room with 3 walls i cannot get it all together, i am pretending like no one will notice the evident ” then i make the audience repeat my name King together, until it sounds loud enough they keep on repeating my name my right hand is formed and heavy and i walk cross steps and my head circles around my torso, ” louder…louder! ok enough ” i get the plastic guitar put it between my legs as tail i go to the floor look at their standing feet. like a dog, right hand hurts on dog. i put on the speech (invitation text) which rejects them as audience ” i take every opportunity to take revenge upon you ” then i get into holy mary plastic vail swimsuit costume and out of house wife costume. in holy mary plastic vail swimsuit now i need someone from the audience ” i need a favor, concerns milk, it is fun “. I put on King video on my mac, it is a music video for Jazz Jam. pours milk on me while i am upside down. acrobatics with legs and feet. putting coal on my feet and hands like sport. wall is dirty now. then i put eggs with back to audience in my swimsuit red eggs in stomach pink water coming down between my legs looks like i am menstruating or peeing. becomes pink lake with the milk on floor. i go to the front again, remove the stop sign in front of the camera on my way…
lay down leg spread backwards…demonic and very flexible. crush the red eggs, while a song for me is being played a song about gifts. the eggs come out of my swimsuit close to vagina and neck crushed red eggs come out of my swimsuit close to vagina and chest too. i massage the crushed eggs into my skin. now when the song Les étoiles et les cochons is playing i undress…yes naked under i am wet. change into queen exotic dress while the dress is lying horizontal on the floor; legs spread and my flesh. fabric feels very nice against my skin, i spread my limbs on floor. i come up and dance in triangle shape; dance is only crossed steps that also make me twirl. after the song Les étoiles et les cochons is finished comes 30 min of filming that i clean up the space with a crown. ” i need a favour, concerns filming, it is fun ” some one from audience films every last 30 min of each performance. i want each time to be different. cleaning up takes time. with crown. different interactions happen every performance: on one occasion 2 other performers from another show came in and i asked them to join.
and i take them in. i want to be alone now. you may leave when you feel like. tape finishes.
Background; What kingdom. Of all damn human. Animals. Nothing important
See Moving makes me sad. Ethiopian dances; Wello, Guragigna, Tigrigna and Wolaita
As a European
I find it important to date things, to document my life and to remember.
Making friends on Internet, means making art on Internet, for me the internet is a platform for making art especially performance art. See You People. I found that Vlogging is the ultimute media for that and so I started to make Preporatory videos and I uploaded every single one on www.youtube.com/meghedi
Swimsuit Tissue has three marriage proposals after only one day in Africa and many boys stand outside her house to kiss her. They all want to go home with her because they too want the chance to find perfection. She kisses some of them because she hopes to find that true love. But the more boys she kisses, the uglier she becomes, but her dreamy blue dress always remains beautiful.
Swimsuit Tissue returns home very disappointed and sad. On her return she meets a tailor that loves her dreamy blue dress so much that he asks her to stay with him. She remains with the tailor because she thinks she finally found true love. She buys golden earrings that so much match her dreamy blue dress.
On a rainy day Swimsuit Tissue arrives home soaked to her bare skin. The tailor hates how she looks and immediately starts to clean her like a madman. She cannot hide her sadness and so she starts to tear her dreamy blue dress in the many pieces. With every piece Swimsuit Tissues anger grows and so she becomes Leni Riefenstahl…
Onionz from David, a music video for Fake Sleeper
Video, performer: Melody Panosian
Music: Powdered Hearts, Fake Sleeper
Location: Cemetery at Spinnerei, Leipzig
Jackson 59
Video, performer: Melody Panosian
Light installation:
Music: Boards Of Canada – Midas Touch (Hell Interface remix)
Location: Spinnerei, Leipzig
Gala, a music video for MelloG
Video, performer: Melody Panosian
Music: David Hamer Atlas ft Melody Panosian, MelloG
Location: Spinnerei, Leipzig
Exotic Bird, a music video for Let’s Go Sailing
Video, performer: Melody Panosian
Music: DZR:P, Let’s Go Sailing
Location: Spinnerei, Leipzig
Daybreak Edit
Performer, video: Melody Panosian
Performer: Anna Mönnich
Music: Pomponfrais, Pom sing hammer and Marilyn Monroe, River of no return
Location: Kulkwitzer See, Leipzig
Cleaning good, a music video for Dear Yma and A Gift from Jon To Melody
Performer, video: Melody Panosian
Music: Jon Sheffield
Location: Spinnerei, Leipzig
King, a music video for Jazz Jam
The song Jazz Jam is made on Internet via an online jamming site. I don’t know what can top this.
Music, video, camera: Melody Panosian
Music: Sean Cannock, Melody Panosian, Penis Mcgee – Jazz Jam
Location: Spinnerei, Leipzig
Die Böse Farbe
‘Do not mix black with yellow!’ is one rule for painters. Black and yellow are colors with totally opposite features and when combined, appears a color of ‘bad’ quality, a special kind of green.
Video, performer, camera: Melody Panosian
Painter, performer, camera: Christian Weidner
Location: Spinnerei, Leipzig
Kerubfesten: Performance participation as the Hostess
Kerubfesten by Kolbeinn Karlsson
Performed on November 27, 2010 at Offkonsten!/Teatergalleriet, Uppsala, SE
Trailer
Video editing: Melody Panosian
F.N.O.R (Fax Nylon Opium Radikalisten)
http://mutanten.org/blog/fnor/
Our collaboration initially started as a misunderstanding, which is often the case when communicating on Internet. By using the nickname “Netochka Nezvanova” I got an email from a fellow space-traveller, Kiritan Flux, who claimed to have met me.
memory 1: The audience is presented with two adjacent screens representing two separate, but interwoven worlds that attempt to communicate – between each other and the performer on stage. The installation wants to share the experience of the refiguring multiple travelling affinities in the real and the virtual world.
It’s a glimpse into the journey of hypertextual flesh through timespace, exposed to a constant stream of information and emotion from the future and the past – poetry that will prevail.
Performed on October 26, 2010 at På Besök, Malmö, SE
Did we meet? was my first reply and from that moment on we exchanged poetry during the whole summer of 2010. Our emails where Intertext poems about our separate love lives, which also initially started off being virtual contacts.
Did we meat?
In October 2010 we started making performances together with the poems (e-mails) as a starting point. The title of the performances are ‘Did we meat?’ We want to share the experience of the refiguring multiple traveling affinities in the real and the virtual world. ‘Did we meat?’ is a glimpse into the journey of hyper-textual flesh through time-space, exposed to a constant stream of information and emotion from the future and the past – poetry that will prevail.
‘Did we meat?’ is a hypermedial performance in constant progress. It’s not a final piece, not a static product, but a permanently changing and evolving happening, inspired by the initial exchanged poetry and the ongoing mutual inspiration derived from present communication between the two of us and the various virtual, digital selfs we embody in the online world. Every performance is a singular experience, it happens once and is not repeated. Every performance is a different piece in itself, but at the same time embracing the priors, weaving the past into the present and future. Hyper-textual flesh has no history, no time, no space, no constants but steady change and progressive evolvement.
” …doing rather than being Your work looks interesting. Its a bit vague and cryptic for me. I like the story of fighting in the nightmare I had a similar dream but cannot remember in details “
memory 2:
Performed on November 6, 2010 at Die Frühperle, Berlin, DE
Performer, video-installation, music: Melody Panosian
Live visuals: Kiritan Flux
Location: Die Frühperle, Berlin
Tomorrow came, we are already downloaded. The meat is really physically changing since the Internet. What is happening is an abstraction or complexification, hybridisation of social bodies and qualities, themes, physicalities, dynamics, which, for us, are poetically inherent to those bodies in a real or imagined society. We are in a state of transition and what have become of our bodies? We am attracted to materialising the metaphysical. The new flesh. The idea being that the resulting movement can in turn nourish more sensation and imagination for the art work and for the audience. The structure of our brain changes just by using Internet every day. Checking email is becoming an automatic action. We’re used to non-linearity, copy-paste writing – which is more “natural” than linear full text writing. We’re on the verge, something’s coming, something’s coming, something’s coming.
The word “creation” will no longer be restricted to works of art but will signify a self-conscious activity, self convincing, reproducing for its own terms. It has its own reality (body, desire, time, space), being its own creation. In cyberspace the imageries, have been translated as abandonment of the flesh, while venturing into cyberspace. The desire for an evolutionary transformation of the human has shifted focus from the preparation for the journey into ‘outer space’ from a dying planet to the virtual ‘inner space’ of the computer. Thus the flesh is changing into plurality and if the law is to execute itself it will have to inscribe itself on the body, also like a touch.
The above text is an example of typical intertext; three texts woven into each other by copy-pasting. An example of the very working method in which ‘Did we meet?’ started off.
- The Holy Fools, Richard Barbrook
- Cyberspace/cyberbodies/cyberpunk: cultures of technological embodiment, Mike Featherstone, Roger Burrows
- I, Cyborg: Reinventing the Human, Proud to Be Flesh: A Mute Magazine Anthology of Culture and Politics After the Net
Moving makes me sad. Ethiopian dances; Wello, Guragigna, Tigrigna and Wolaita
In April 2010 I was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a one month Ethiopian traditional dances workshop at Adugna Dance Theatre Company. Adugna is also the only contemporary dance company in Ethiopia.
In Ethiopia, there are 80 tribes and cultures. There are 84 Ethiopian dances and I practiced 4 of them; Wello, Guragigna, Tigrigna and Wolaita. The dances come from different tribes in different regions in Ethiopia. These tribes differ in costume, traditions, religion etc.
Wello – a dance from Wello tribe in the northern Ethiopia.
Guragigna – southern Ethiopia.
Tigrigna – north / middle Ethiopia. Tigrigna is the most popular dance and music form in Ethiopia, since the governement is Tigrignan now.
Wolaita – southern Ethiopia.
There is a saying that in the north you dance more with your head and the further south you go the more south in the body; moving down from the head, shoulders, chest, back, hips, knees to feet.
The dances are summarised under the name Wuzuwaze and more shoulder emphasized dances go under the name Eskesta. In all Ethiopian dances there is a integration of rhythm/movements and improvisation is enabled because every body does the dance differently. The dances are performed in groups or in pairs and as rituals, they serve a narration.
I was taught these 4 Ethiopian traditional dances by 2 teachers. I also attended morning classes in contemporary dance with the Adugna Dance Theatre Company and gave a workshop in choreography / group improvisation for Adugna Dance Theatre Company. In addition, I taught contemporary dance to the children that study Ethiopian traditional dances at the Ethiopian National Theatre.
Addis Ababa is a green city that looks like a roller coaster. Much because of the holes that spontaneously emerge in the asphalt. If you dont look up, you walk straight down. Most people are farmers. There is a traffic that no one is really used to. People walk in the middle of the road.
When I first arrived in Addis it was full Easter celebrations. Many women had solemn white
linen dresses and scarves and the streets where swarming with goats and chickens. As soon as the Easter weekend and the 55-day fasting was over there was no honking and bleating in the night and the only sound left was the dogs howling.
Private classes in Etiopian traditional dances
My first teacher in Ethiopian traditional dances, Shiferaw Tariku, said that I struggled in the beginning, that every time I would stop feeling pleasure when i dance, I must stop and start again. These private classe where relatively formal while these danses actually function as social dances. Feet are synchronized and the dance requires relation, interaction and thus improvisation. The music, which is the same as dance, communicates when it is the “transition movements” and when it is the “dance movements”.
To help me find meaning to dance this social dance alone, Shiferaw said ” Imagine that I am not here. You would dance for yourself. ” I realized the limitation of learning the dances with private teachers, because it was like I was only existing for myself. As some dance moves require a partner, he danced with me I realized early on that I needed more time to learn these dances because my sceleton and my joints needed time to adapt to the new movements. Shiferaws goal was to teach these four dances beacuse their distinguished rythms.
After the very first week with Shiferaw I had decided to come back and continue learn more about these dances.
My second teacher in Ethiopian traditional dances was Temesgen.
Temesgen is famous in Etioipien for be a very good traditional dancer. He teaches the traditional
Ethiopian dances to children in the age of 4 to 20. There are a total of 40 children that dance for him. They practice at the Ethiopian National Theatre where there is no dance floor, so they dance on the stone floor.
The first time I visited Temesgens students in Ethiopian National Theatre they asked me to give some classes in contemporary / modern dance two times a week. I thought them an old solo dance phrase, called Isis. We made a group composition of the solo. I thought them dance composition and in the end we did an improvisation from the same movement material.
Like most people in Ethiopia, Temesgen is very religious, and before the daily dance class begins they all join hands in a circle and pray together. To my great surprise, Temesgen never taught any other foreigner in traditional Ethiopian dances. Rarely have we seen a dancer like Temesgen. Everyone talks about that he has great “power”. To see Temesgen dance was like seeing embodied music. Pure emotion, pure rhythm. He sings constantly while dancing. Temesgen repeatedly asked me, “You feeling it?”. According to him, I was able dance whenever I felt the music.
I recognized movements from the experience I have from break dance and dance hall. I could also trace movements from popular R & B music videos similar to the experience I had from my private lessons with Shiferaw, a liberating dance for myself.
You should create your own dance style, and you should always follow the music, follow the rhythm within.
I discovered, that music and dance are not so separated in Ethiopia as in the West; where dance is dance and music is music.
Camera: Addisu Demissie Kifle.
Traditional dancer Temesgen and contemporary dancer Nuria Mohammed. Together with contemporary dancer, Shiferaw Tariku, my teachers in 4 traditional Ethiopian dances.
Adugna Dance and Theatre Company
Adugna is the only dance company that makes contemporary dance in Ethiopia. To a large extent, I got insight into the conditions under which they run a dance company in Ethiopia. The Adugna members work in diverse ways; as dancers with international choreographers and they make dance with people with AIDS and disabled people. They have had training in classical ballet, contemporary dance and African dance. Their dance studio has a functional dance floor but the audio equipment is very unpredictable. There is electricity on occasions but you never know when. There is no electricity when its is raining.
My schedule consisted of morning training in contemporary dance / improvisation with Adugna and in the afternoon I had my own traditional private Ethiopian traditional dances training. Early on we realized that we where in exchange so they asked me to give a workshop in choreography.
In One hour walk we walk in couples for one hour through the city to create a piece of choreography. The process and research time becomes identical with the rehearsal time. We walk around a shared public space, then we bring that experience back to the studio and show a choreography. Me and my working partner Addissu walked around the Markato Market, where half a million peoples houses had recently been totally removed. During that walk we through a mango between us, to make it softer. We discovered how different our realities are by how the others would look at us; what they would not say directly to me as a forengee and what they would think of him, being with me. When we later presented that in the studio it was the mango that was our connection the whole time while speaking in our mother tongues, it eventually broke on the floor as flesh and juice.
In One Hour Walk my partner Addisu asked me “What is The Color of Addis Ababa?”. I
replied, “White, blue, red, yellow ….”. He said that he does not see skin color. Yes, even a color-blind can see the nuances.
Returnee is an Ethiopian term. A Returnee is a person born in Ethiopia, growing up in the U.S.
or the like and then return to Ethiopia. A Returnee. They start businesses in Addis because they have a belief to improve Ethiopia’s economy. I wondered why Ethiopians abroad do not support the dance company to build a new dance studio. The reason is that unlike other nations, such as Jews or Armenians, Africans do not usually gather large collections, since most Africans in the first place not can get out from Africa. Standard in Africa is in a village receives a polio vaccination. Africa can not develop in the direction of what is called the standard in the West.
UtopiaS
Adugna asked me to give another workshop and I had been thinking of a group improvisation on the theme Utopias. I wanted to continue with the questions that come up under the One Hour Walk.
Everyone’s different utopias are possible when one is acts without agent, but creates. Utopias and improvisation can be compared to a game and how do people listen in a dream?
In a state of being singular plural, you wonder if the game has begun. It seems to be no real and not imaginary, atleast not, at a certain distance. This facilitates co-existence because of not being reduced to a dancing art object, but rather a conscious participant. Utopia is a framework for utopia in the plural, a place where people are free to join together voluntarily to pursue and try to realize their own vision of co-existincing manner of life in the ideal society, but where no one can impose their utopian vision. The utopian society is the many utopias society.
Leni Riefenstahl giving the sponsored message – practicing propaganda.
My main inspiration to go to Ethiopia was Leni Riefenstahl. Was she an apolitical artist or a conniving fellow traveller, if not dedicated believer, of the Nazi Regime? No one with potentially large viewing public can overlook the potential impact of their work on society, its culture, and its politics. Leni Riefenstahl, constantly teaches me that providence will triumph over ego. What do you have to do to live – you have to be there and make it happen.
Judith Butler has very clearly shown, once we become aware of the fact that we are (re)producing the dominant order through our daily activity, we become able to change our behaviour, and thereby the dominant order itself.
The flanuer observes and understand and changes in interaction. The flanuer is interested in intermediary arrangements that we are calling networks. By experiencing Ethiopian culture I would see more clearly where I came from but then the struggle became how to relate, becoming the others other.
Leni Riefenstahl; glorifies beauty – tones down the destructive. Seeks to postpone her death. Defer death through differentiating herself. Singularizes herself. Riefenstahl is concerned about her very being and not being: mortality.
I want to observe the work/leasure distinction. Observe the drudgery of man kind and how we treat the body as an operator of machines. I would rather be both human and machine. Machines, being emergent, do not have origins to which they must be faithful. There is not a happy person who is not in her body.
The body which is neither global or local – a traveler in transition.
My virtual (avatar) body(s) gives me access transform by travel. I started the project from an emailadress and ended up dancing Ethiopian traditional dances in Addis Ababa. After World War II Leni Riefenstahl traveled to Africa as Leni Riefenstahl – the photographer and filmmaker. She was a personality without character that fabricated an other story of herself.
Maya Deren gave dance for camera its name and gave lectures and wrote immensely on art and film. She organised the experimental film world. Maya Deren wanted to go into the society of the Haitians with making a film about the Vodoun in Haiti. She was always invited by the Haitians, to dance with them and participate in their rituals but most often she would stay as director behind the film camera.
During my stay in Addis Ababa I wanted my flesh to be totally absorbed by their dances. I also participated in a traditional coffee ceremony, preparing the ceremony myself and I also paid visit to an orthodox wedding ceremony of one brother from one of the people in the Adugna. 
‘Moving makes me sad’ serves as the background for the installation/performance What Kingdom. Of all damn human. Animals. Nothing important.
Kindly supported by Swedish Arts Grants Committee
Proberaum
Performance by and with VaSaJaDanceCollective: Hanna Strandberg (Va), Alma Söderberg (Sa), Melody Panosian (Ja)
28 November 2009 Kule Theater, Berlin
Performers: Hanna Strandberg, Alma Söderberg, Melody Panosian
Music: Alma Söderberg
Video, camera: Melody Panosian
Location: Tanzfabrik, Berlin and Kule Theater, Berlin
Preparation Video for Proberaum performance by and with Melody Panosian and Hanna Strandberg
Performers: Hanna Strandberg, Melody Panosian
Music: Beyoncé, Halo
Video, camera: Melody Panosian
Location: Treptower Park, Berlin
Weaving the Webs
Video-installation / Performances 16-28 October 2009 Kunsthaus Bethanien, Berlin
Weaving the Webs is a video/installation that includes 8 performances. Each performance had its own title; Dry, Suitcase, Factory, Ones, Zeros, Unlooped, Looped and Woven. The 8 performances where metaphoric, action based and about 2-7 min of length. The installation was transformed after each performance; The web changed shape and quality, the net was interwoven and the boxes where moved around. During the 3 week exhibition period mine and my colligue, Sara Harro’s ideas where also interwoven and we wanted to keep that process similar to the hypertextual chaos that is characteristic to the internets condition. We dealt with health and community in the drudgery and mediocrity of neo-liberal culture. We where inspired by cyborg women, innocence in all its forms, computers as artists, people as machines and nature as technology.
Direction, choreography, performers, costume, installation,
camera, video: Sara Harro and Melody Panosian
Music, loop machine: Melody Panosian
Location: Kunsthaus Bethanien, Berlin 2009
Fish (In Real Time)
This video is made for the blog Bateau Ivre Horses.
Video: Melody Panosian
Performers: Florentina Holzinger, Melody Panosian
Location: Berlin
The Lonesome Cowboy for Melody Panosian
The Lonesome Cowboy for Melody Panosian is a video/installation in which I perform the surreal of self display. I wanted to ”step aside” and create a situational irony; what seems to be and what is. The working method was much like the Lonesome Cowboy for Florentina Holzinger, influenced by Deborah Hays method where the movements derived from constant questions asked in the body. I wanted to research the matter of heritage – a form beyond the collected experience and performative. We might be entities with inherited memory, a heritage leaking through time, seemingly out of present context. These versatile shapes do not grab habits, confirmations and concepts but they confirm an unprocessed expression. The challenge of all the artificial lights to the violence of the sun rays.
Direction, choreograpy, performer, costume, video, camera: Melody Panosian
Music: Alma Söderberg, A High
Installation: Maria Norefors
Location: Ausland and BAT Studiotheater, Berlin 2009
Coating Agent
Posted Soon
Prepared Piano and Trumpet: Anais Tuerlinckx
Circuit Bent Radio: Melody Panosian
Performances: Anais Tuerlinckx and Melody Panosian
Location: Fischladen, Berlin and Mainzerstr. 39, Berlin
The Lonesome Cowboy for Florentina Holzinger
The Lonesome Cowboy for Florentina Holzinger is a solo performance where I pushed the performer Florentina Holzinger to a point where she was very sensitive to sounds created by herself in the space. I worked out a method in which Florentinas listening skills would be exercised. The movements derived from constant questions asked in the body, much like choreographer Deborah Hay works. In the dance studio we exercised moving the body with low pelvic guttural sounds and high throat sounds. We made sound research as a working method. We studied musique concrete and we recorded layers of everyday sounds. Sitting in a park, we interviewed the composer, Tian Rotterveel, about sound perception and phenomenology. We did all this, to practice listening and open up the possibility for accumulating new interests and choices in sound- and movement-making. Quadrophonic speakers where panned in the performance to bring the performer to yet another level of sound enviroment. This eventualy broke down her own sound and movement vocabulary to the point of being lost and full of adrenaline. A state of trance or hysteria. I wanted to engage the body in its own construction of identity, once the space is not imposing its ways on us, to engage the person in active choises. Creating hidden performativities in fluidity, not in rigidity and hierarchy but in decentralization.
Direction, choreography, costume, light design, sound engineering: Melody Panosian
Performer: Florentina Holzinger
Location: SNDO 1 Festival, Amsterdam 2008
Photo session, The Lonesome Cowboy for Florentina Holzinger
The poster for the performance The Lonesome Cowboy is meant to give a certain expectation to the audience before seeing the performance. Later, the expectation is not to be fulfilled. The costume is a reference to the heroine in Kill Bill, but my main aim was to place a non descript person in a rural landscape.
Direction, costume, camera: Melody Panosian
Performer: Florentina Holzinger
Location: Nieuwe Meer, Amsterdam 2008
Flyer for The Lonesome Cowboy for Florentina Holzinger
ScreenSnapz_Circuit_Bent_Radio
Performer, Circuit Bent Radio: Melody Panosian
Camera, video: Unknown
Location: Witte de Withstraat, Amsterdam
Itchy and Scratchy
I was invited to this dance and media culture lab DAMA – Performing Space, time and media and I had the opportunity to collaborate with Finish and Islandic visual artist and dancers. I gave a workshop in circuit bending.
Itchy and Scratchy is a split screen concert where one side of the screen shows a performer moving her hand. The other side of the screen shows a performer playing a circuit bent radio. We where working with basic listening tools for improvising music/dance and I wanted to demonstrate music/dance tactility in an almost pedagogic sense.
Direction: Melody Panosian
Performers: Ragnheiður Sigurðard Bjarnarson and Mari Ylipihan
Location: University of Lapland, Rovaniemi 2007
Botanical Gardens 2004-2006
Bat Dance Pupa Dance and Gelatinous
are a series of events/site specifics in the Botanical Gardens 2004-2006 during the annual Kultur I Natten, which is a cultural event taking place night time all over the city of Visby, Gotland.
During dance/choreography studies on Gotlands Dansutbildningar in Visby a met many artists from versatile artistic backgrounds. They studied animation, composition, sculpture and dance. I realised my work was about creating environments of exchange. During that time I was going to Butoh dance workshops during off school time. I was influenced by the Butoh dance workshops; Exploring physicality through poetry and imagery, transcending the bodily state into new physical conditions.
I started experimenting with material in a molecular and poetic level in my choreographies. I was observing different qualities of movement with the help of versatile materials. What makes the materials unique and how they are distinguished. These conditions come from imaginative powers and fabricates a new physicality. The research period was always transparent for all the collaborators as I handed out project descriptions consisting of images, scientific texts and my poetry. I was writing informative poems; Reading scientific texts that are merely explanatory, then using that language for making poetry about a materials metamorphosis, and using it as excuse and content of the dance/choreography.
Bat Dance (2004) is an event where I was exploring the bat; its movement ability and the sounds that make a radar, enabling it to orientate in blindness.
Direction, choreography, costume: Melody Panosian
Performer: Anna Hedström, Melody Panosian
Music: Marcus Wrangö, Edda Magnasson
Projections: Peter Larsson
Sculpture: Anna Olsson
Location: Botanical Gardens, Visby 2004
Pupa Dance (2005) is an event exploring the dramaturgy of the pupas development into imago and reversed back to pupa again.
I was exploring the pupas movement ability. The dramaturgical line , also functioned as the dramaturgical line in the musical composition.
Direction, choreography, performer, costume: Melody Panosian
Music: Jacob Svartengren
Installation: Anna Olsson
Location: Botanical Gardens, Visby 2005
Gelatinous (2006) is an event exploring the jelly material on a molecular level – from liquid form to jelly material. I developed a working method to be able to teach it to another performer.
Direction, choreography, costume, camera: Melody Panosian
Performer: Zayri Ramark
Music: Daniel Karlsson
Sculpture: Rasmus Streith
Location: Botanical Gardens, Visby 2006
