INTERMISSION

source: highlike

Work: Intermission is a patient performance. It enjoys the luxury of taking its time. It’s not in any rush. Made out of pauses, interruption, loops and delays. It’s quiet but not frozen, absent but not ambivalent.
Performed by Paige Martin, Hristoula Harakas and Maria Hassabi at the 55th Venice Biennale, as part of “oO”, Cyprus and Lithuanian Pavilion.
Photographer: Robertas Narkus
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source: mariahassabi

“Think of a volcano that moves slow, takes its time and attempts to be still. Trembles and tension become the motion. Separated at adolescence, sculpture and dance move towards a shared destination where they are inseparable like Gilbert and George. 17 steps on the south wing, 18 steps on the north one are made out of pauses, interruptions, loops and delays. To commemorate it several living sculptures from one or two countries may arrive.” Raimundas Malašauskas, Curator

“I have watched Hassabi make performances for years and I am always enthralled. As the viewer, I wonder, I question, I resist and ultimately, I succumb. She exerts control over the total experience—the performance space is often very ascetic and tightly focused—and yet I find numerous ways to sit with the work, to enter its nuanced and deep world, and to make it truly my own. She is resolute in her intention, virtuosic in her physical control, but not afraid to slow down, to restrict her palette of movement, and to leave aside easy choices. Hers is a dance that lives between object and movement, a dance that conjures a frame and dares you to resist.”

Time-Based Art Festival, Artistic Director Cathy Edwards, August 5, 2010

Maria Hassabi is a New York-based director, choreographer and performance artist. Over the past ten years, she has developed a practice involved with the relation of the body to the image—defined by sculptural physicality and extended duration. Her works are presented in theaters, museums, galleries and public spaces. Throughout her career she’s had ongoing collaborations with artists from various disciplines. Hassabi is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, 2009 Grants to Artists Award. In 2012, she received The President’s Award for Performing Arts from the LMCC, and in 2013 she represented The Cyprus Republic as part of The Cyprus and Lithuanian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Her evening length works include PREMIERE (2013), the 8-hour long live installation INTERMISSION (2013), Counter-Relief (Kaai 2013), SHOW (2011), Robert and Maria (2010), SoloShow (2009), Solo (2009), GLORIA (2007), Still Smoking (2006), Dead is Dead (2004) and LIGHTS (2001). She has also created several short-form pieces, art installations including CHANDELIERS (2012), and a short film, The Ladies (2012).

Hassabi’s works have been presented in the US at venues such as Performance Space 122, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, PS1 MoMA, CCS Bard Galleries at Bard College (Hudson, New York), Ballroom Marfa (Texas), Portland Institute for Contemporary Art TBA Festival (Oregon), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University, and featured in the Visual Art Performance Biennial Performa 09 and 13, the French Institute Alliance Francaise Crossing the Line festivals in 2009 and 2011, and LMCC’s 2012 River to River Festival.

Internationally, she has been presented at venues such as Kaaitheater (Brussels, Belgium), deSingel (Antwerp, Belgium), Middleheim Museum (Antwerp, Belgium), Museo Soumaya (Mexico City), Cente d’Art Contemporain Geneva (Switzerland), Vienna Art Fair (Austria), Musée Géo Charles (Grenoble, France), Beit Hair Center for Urban Culture (Tel Aviv, Israel), Frascati Theater (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Balletto Teatro di Torino (Turin, Italy), and at festivals such as Springdance Festival (Utrecht, Netherlands), ImPulsTanz (Vienna, Austria), Tanz im August (Berlin, Germany), Dance4, (Nottingham, UK), In-Presentable Festival (Madrid, Spain), TSEH- Springdance/Dialogue (Moscow, Russia), City of Women Festival (Ljublana, Slovenia), Volcano Extravaganza 2013 – Evil Under The Sun (Stromboli, Italy) and festivals in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Greece and Portugal.

Born in Cyprus, Maria Hassabi moved to the United States in 1990 to study at the California Institute of the Arts, where she received a BFA in Performance and Choreography. In 1994, she moved to New York City to study at the Merce Cunningham Studio while continuing her studies in various release techniques and The Alexander Technique. She is a certified teacher of the Pilates Method of Body Conditioning and taught Pilates in New York and abroad from 1997-2008. Since 2009, she has been regularly invited to give choreographic workshops, participate in panels and give lectures at Universities and Festivals such as Herberger College of the Arts at Arizona State University, Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, Oregon), deSingel Conservatory (Antwerp Belgium), Dance4 (Nottingham, UK), DANSLAB (Den Haag, Netherlands), at ImPulsTanz Festival (Vienna, Austria) and at City of Women Festival (Ljubljana, Slovenia). In April of 2012, she was a mentor for the Europe in Motion program at Springdance Festival (Utrecht, Netherlands).

Her work has received funding from The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, the Jerome Foundation, The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, the National Performance Network Creation Fund, LMCC’s Extended Life Program, Foundation 2021, The Mertz Gilmore Foundation, and from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the LMCC.
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source: utopiaparkway

So, Berlinde De Bruyckere hasn’t brought that Golden Lion home, for Belgium. But in a remote way we are linked to one of the winners at the Venice Biennale. Because there’s a link between Belgium and Lithuania, winner of a special mention for ‘an original curatorial format’, a pavilion set up jointly with Cyprus. Two of the commissioners of the Lithuanian pavilion are Aurimé Aleksandraviciute and Jonas Zakaitis, who used to run Tulips & Roses, a hip gallery in Brussels. Raimundas Malasauskas, the pavilion’s curator, was one of the artists they represented.
Theirs is a pavilion of a different kind, certainly worth a visit (close to the Arsenale), as it is housed in a sports hall. As I visited it, I wasn’t sure what was part of the exhibition and what not. That poster on the floor certainly was, but that cleaning robot? (As a matter of fact: it’s called Roomba, and it is). At the center of the exhibition you’ll find walls shipped from several European museums (Cousins, by Dutch artist Gabriel Lester). Some of them are from Wiels (Brussels). During the opening days choreographer/performance artist Maria Hassabi was performing Intermission (she recently premiered Counter-relief at Kaaitheater’s Performatik festival, Brussels). Do get lost in the building and you might be in for another slightly surreal surprise, as you might be running into cleaning ladies first, and then groups of teenagers, training in one of the other halls.