Motus Mori

source:katjaheitmanncom
Through her visual-choreographic work, Katja Heitmann (DE/NL) researches what moves people in our current era. Katja won the Prize of the Dutch Dance Festival in 2016. Katja Heitmann’s choreographic work comprises explicit estheticism, sharply contrasted by human fallibility. Her radically minimalist and minutely designed visual language confronts viewers with a frantic flood of insight. This distinct, perceptible tension returns in all her work.

With her team Katja creates performance-installations and theatrical exhibitions. Always departing from the questions ‘Who (or what) moves who?’ we work in varied places from public spaces to theatres or musea.

In 2018 we started our new project Motus Mori, in which Katja is going to research and preserve movements which are in danger of extinction.
Motus Mori is a longterm project (2018-2020) that consists of an ungoing research with multiple presentations like a choreographical TED-talk, mobile movement laboratories, field researches with divers groups of people, large movement expositions, city- rituals…
This way Katja and her team will work on a growing collection of endangered human movements.
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source:katjaheitmanncom
Choreographer Katja Heitmann is concerned that movement is in danger of extinction. Especially movements that are not efficient and do not serve a direct cause. For example unconscious movements of everyday life; like the act of sitting or taking a walk. Or the movement of aging. Or maybe even the human sigh…
But aren’t those the movements that define us as human?

Katja wants to create a place where we can analyse these endangered human motorics, preserve them in a physical living archive and expose these choreographical sculptures to the audience.

In 2019 and 2020 Katja and her team are working together with arts-festivals and museums, creating a series of choreographic sculptures. In gallery’s, museums, churches, theatres she exposes these durational (5 hour) performances in-situ. In so-called ‘ zoom-in’ sessions Katja explains her way of working and adds context. The result are impressive multi-day – multi hour performance-expositions of humanity.

In spring 2019 we work together with STRP festival (Eindhoven NL) to create a laboratory to preserve human movements. We will be part of the expo for 10 days in a row, collecting movements from the audience and showing the preservation-process. 5 performers, 10 days, 8 hours a day;
Laboratorium Motus Mori.

In autumn 2019 we collaborate with Marres House for contemporary culture (Maastricht NL) to create a museum of the endangered movement. 10 performers, 6 weeks, 6 days a week, 5 hours a day; Museum Motus Mori.
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source:strpnl
Choreographer Katja Heitmann (D/NL) operates on the cutting edge between dance and visual art, performance and installation. In her work she explores what moves people in our current era. She is fascinated by the control society and her efficiency-thinking which is currently manifesting. The progressing technology allows people to ‘optimise’ their far-reaching world, as is propagated in transhumanism, for example. Heitmann suggests that this optimisation is threatening certain movements with ‘extinction’. Movements that are not effective, efficient and controllable will slowly but surely disappear.

But are these not the movements that distinguish humans from machines and make humans human?

Preserving humanity
During STRP Festival, Katja Heitmann presents a theatrical laboratory in which she invites us to donate conscious and unconscious movements. These movements are analysed in real time by the 5 present dancers, made abstract and transformed into movement sculptures. This creates a living exhibition based on movements that are dying out. Heitmann uses her work to present critical questions about the relationship between humans, technology and society, but primarily also the question of what it means to be human.

As well as the laboratory, Heitmann will also regularly present theatrical zoom-in session. Supported by video material, she delves deeper into how movements are collected and how the sculptures are created. These anatomical sessions give us an insight into her choreographic dissecting room.

During the conference, Katja Heinemann will also be one of the speakers.

Choreography & concept: Katja Heitmann
Music & concept: Sander van der Schaaf
Dancers: Wies Berkhout, Anna Zurkirchen, Merle Schiebergen, Manou Koreman, Rebecca Collins
Artistic advice: Moene Roovers, Christina Flick, Ingrid de Rond
Video & photography: Hanneke Wetzer
Co-production: DansBrabant, Marres house for contemporary culture Maastricht, STRP
Partner: tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf
Supported by: Gemeente Tilburg, Provincie Noord Brabant, Fonds Podiumkunsten
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source:artpilcom
Katja Heitmann’s choreographic sculptures are isolated, mechanically brought into motion, the hips tilted, the leg lifted, driven across the space where every movement is deliberate, and fragments constantly repositioned in time.

German choreographer Katja Heitmann and ten dancers will create a museum for physical movements that face the threat of extinction. Museums are meant to preserve human culture and history. It nearly goes without saying that they do so through objects, installations, and occasionally, stories. But humanity itself is missing in this solidified version of our lives. For six weeks, five hours a day, the dancers and the choreographer will take on the remarkable challenge of creating a new museum precisely for that purpose. Museum Motus Mori will sensitize visitors to the deep humanness hidden within the body.
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source:musicasacramaastrichtnl
Een choreografie voor het sleutelbeen, een dans van navel, buikvet en ribbenkast, de anatomie van een zucht. De Duitse choreografe Katja Heitmann (1987) gaat met haar dansers voor Marres een fysieke tentoonstelling maken. Museum Motus Mori; een museum voor bewegingen die met uitsterven bedreigd worden. Heitmann is gefascineerd door het efficiëntie-denken. Voortschrijdende technologie stelt de mens in staat haar leefwereld verregaand te ‘optimaliseren’. Zal de mens uiteindelijk zichzelf optimaliseren? Zullen bewegingen die in onze controlemaatschappij nutteloos of inefficiënt zijn verdwijnen? Kunnen we die menselijke beweging vastleggen? Zes weken lang, vijf uur per dag, gaan tien dansers de uitdaging aan om uitstervende bewegingen te conserveren. Elke dag zoomen ze in op de menselijke motoriek en ontrafelen die in anatomische patronen, structuren, schijnbaar eeuwigdurende herhalingen. Ze blijven bewegen, ze blijven zoeken, elke dag opnieuw. Als bezoeker word je uitgenodigd om de dansers gedurende deze zes weken te volgen in de continu voortbewegende expositie. De expositie is tot en met zondag 27 oktober te zien.