For his group choreography Ecto-Fictions, Ian Kaler revisited his 2010 graduation production Save a horse ride a cowboy. Kaler, who found his love for horses at the age of 6. The PARASOL participants explored connections between his choreographic work and the interaction, (non-verbal) communication with horses and contextualized them within the movement practice of riding.

Ecto-Fictions develops a fictitious documentary stage narrative that addresses questions concerning togetherness and cohesion. The title already alludes to the quality of an ‘external’ perception and reflects on processes of projection and ascription in the interaction and encounter with animals. Ecto-Fictions represents the attempt to create a space for enhanced and utopian visions of corpo*realit*ies, where attributions and classifications can be studied.

Supported by the City of Vienna, Department of Cultural Affairs, and the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK – STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance.

POINTS OF DEPARTURE is a stage piece in three parts building a narrative across time-lines and media.

The piece starts with a video prologue of footage (cinematography: Diara Sow, editing: Dafne Narvaez Berlfein) of Ian Kaler performing with a hawk in a forest. The idea to work with a hawk in this piece stems from a conversation with set designer Stephanie Rauch who’s creating an abandoned suburban parking-lot-meets-edge-of-the-forest scenery for the piece. The video is structured as an expanding loop, blending layers of spacial perception, physique/body image and movement of the hawk and the human protagonist. This over-layering of characters for the video-prologue is inspired by the mythological figure of the „harpy“ which is described as a character with a birds body and a woman’s head. Hyphen, the title of the ImPulsTanz premiere, emphasizes the connection between the two otherwise unjoined figures.

For the second part Kaler invited choreographer Jen Rosenblit to write and direct a monologue for him. Starting point for the text and character was working on a teenage character who fluctuates between inner monologue, storytelling, memory recollection, diary entry and sporadic, casual addresses to the outside (ie. audience). The character blends auto-biographical and fictional narratives and develops more and more of a physicality as the text and performance progresses.

For the final part of the performance the choreographer and movement director Stéphane “Peeps” Moun shares techniques from his practice informed by elements of housedance, hip hop, Tapdance & jazz- dance. Together they work on blending Kaler’s own movement practice with Peeps’s methods and approach to co-choreograph a powerful as well as subtle, hypnotic movement sequence.

Berlin-based music producer rRoxymore aka Hermione Frank plays the electronic live soundtrack weaving a thread and performing together with Kaler. Lighting designer Thomas Zamolo contributes live lights to the piece.

INOSCULATION was a first step in the research for a new choreographic series with the title AUTO-FICTIONS. INOSCULATION explores the anatomy of a marionette (The Kid) in the making of an imagined in/animate figure as the choreographers child-like alter ego or representative inner child. The Kid was conceived and constructed for the short movie GRAFTING SELF that will be published in 2023.

Over the course of 5 weeks Ian Kaler collaborated with set desinger Nanna Neudeck in a formalized process of working on a test dummy of the marionette in which they explored the possibilities of materiality/materials and techniques, the anatomy and principles in movement of core, head, joints, limbs and extremities and the design and making of the face and presence of The Kid.

This work-process was followed by two evenings at LE STUDIO Film und Bühne c/o Studio Molière of a collage-like work in progress, showing and talk, in which Kaler shared and combined video-footage documenting the process with other materials, fragments and questions from the research and process.

The title INOSCULATION refers to the naturaly occuring phenomenon of trunks, branches and roots of two trees growing together; the term inosculation is also used in the context of plastic surgery for a mechanism by which skin grafts take at the host site.

Choreographer Ian Kaler created for the first time a big stage production for Cullberg. ON THE CUSP is a mix of live-practicing and synchronized movements, a spectrum of emotions and projections. It is a combined live and video work, on a series of different topics. The work presents a collection of portraits, of the individuals, as well as of the group. Every dancer has their own story, and the company connects them. Who are the people in the group, and how do they construct this group? Are they characters or do they want to play a certain role? Shifting from different kind of characters, who are they in private and how does that shape the stage character? The music of electronically synthesized brass sound composed by Planningtorock creates bold, dramatic, playful and deeply moving dance pieces.

The work is a collection of portraits, one of each dancer, and one of the group. What will you create with the company?
“I want to play with a mix of live-practicing and synchronized movements. It will be a combined live and video work, a series of different topics, in different ways. I am very interested in narrative, how little stories can be told through the body. I want to create portraits, of the individuals, as well as a portrait of the group. Every dancer has their own story, and the company connects them. Who are the people in the group, and how do they construct this group? Are they characters or do they want to play a certain role? Shifting from different kind of characters, who are they in private and how does that shape the stage character? Almost like a fake documentary. I will work with screens, and the bodies as screens and stand-ins of representations and imagination. And I will work with creating intensities, let the dancers play inside the system that the group is and generates. Every dancer will have their own mark in terms of character, movement, presence, clothing.. It might turn out to be funny, sad, and a bit ambivalent – I wanna go through a spectrum of emotions and projections. Originally I come from the abstract, going towards how I can tell stories. I want to explore that further in this process.”

Ian Kaler is supported by the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, Vienna.

In RAW PRACTICE choregrapher and performer Ian Kaler and music producer and performer Jam Rostron aka Planningtorock reveal their shared practice that first began through the internationally acclaimed choreographic series o.T. Developing parallel to the three o.T. pieces has been a unique and personal creative language between Kaler and Rostron. A rich and intuitive collaborative partnership which the duo will now perform for the first time as RAW PRACTICE.

The point of departure of this new format are the core elements from the first, second and third part of the o.T series. In a structured and improvised jam-session with live-performed music of Planningtorock’s mix of rich melodic electronics and decisive percussion and Kaler’s charged and evoking movement-sequences the two artists share their intuitive practice. The outcome is an intimate dialogue in real-time in which Kaler and Rostron build personal narratives in front of the audience. A simple light-dramaturgy frames the performance of this fresh and powerful meeting – symbolizing the dawn and dusk of this, their ongoing venture.

TRANSOME is an excerpt from Kaler’s piece LIVFE. An autobiographical fiction text (Kaler), video (Imogen Heath) and music (rRoxymore) weave together present time with childhood and adolescence, humor and abstraction, associations, imaginations and fantasies of selves. As a manifesto TRANSOME asks us to connect with our body_ies as condition_s that is_are joint, deeply personal, sometimes vulnerable, layered and experiential.

A dream of a flying lion who befriends a five-year-old boy and goes on adventurous travels with him is one of many memories of a fictional character, the protagonist in the piece LIVFE. Ian Kaler takes the audience on new paths after his o. T. series, guiding his main character to a world of autobiographical stories, dreams and adventures. Images flicker on a screen behind which the protagonist moves about, live sounds liquefy the atmosphere, and silhouettes dance in a dialogue between pasts and the here and now.

In (Incipient Futures) the choreographer Ian Kaler continued his collaboration from the first and second part of his choreographic series o.T. (german acronym for „untitled“) with musician and multimedia artist Planningtorock.

The title of the piece signalizes to set in motion a plurality of futures. Kaler and Planningtorock are joined live on stage by the afro-house dancer and fashion-designer Stephane Peeps Moun as well as the drummer Joy Leah Joseph.

(Incipient Futures) is an energetic and intimate exploration of how music, dance and movement form, alter and play with (temporal) unions, bonds and alliances, how we’re being moved as a community and asks the question where we’re heading towards as individuals and together. The set-designer and visual artist Stephanie Rauch designs a close-encounter arena-like set-up for (Incipient Futures).

The series o.T. is a production of Ian Kaler in coproduction with HAU Hebbel am Ufer, ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival, Norrlandsoperan and Tanzquartier Wien in Cooperation with Tanzfabrik Berlin and APAP – Advancing Performing Arts Project – Performing Europe supported by Wien Kultur, Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin, Der Regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin Senatskanzlei Kulturelle Angelegenheiten and NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN) Koproduktionsförderung Tanz aus Mitteln des Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien aufgrund eines Beschlusses des Deutschen Bundestags.

In the second piece of the new series o.T., Ian Kaler together with Philipp Gehmacher and music producer Aquarian Jugs aka Planningtorock investigates connections, commonalities and threshold areas as possible approaches to movement and dynamics of his movement practice specially developed for o.T..

Subsequent to the first part of the series – (the emotionality of the jaw) – (gateways to movement) further develops the solo concept as and with an interplay of the actors. (gateways to movement) marks a process of mutual questioning and challenging, and offers a playful approach to how friendship, companionship and complicity may trigger overcoming the predictable and make it accessible.

The concept implies interweaving and pulsating of inner and outer movements, balancing un/familiar states of permeation in moments of encounter. Let us enter the space with our movements, steps, emotions and conditions in order to integrate our un/foreseeable and currently uncanny world!

The series o.T. is a production of Ian Kaler in coproduction with HAU Hebbel am Ufer, ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival, Norrlandsoperan and Tanzquartier Wien in Cooperation with Tanzfabrik Berlin and APAP – Advancing Performing Arts Project – Performing Europe supported by Wien Kultur, Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin, Der Regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin Senatskanzlei Kulturelle Angelegenheiten and NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN) Koproduktionsförderung Tanz aus Mitteln des Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien aufgrund eines Beschlusses des Deutschen Bundestags.

In THE EMOTIONALITY OF THE JAW, the first part of the o.T. series, Ian Kaler further develops his solo-practice. The piece explores states of “dawn/ing” as states of charging (with) energy, states of drifting that correspond to a letting-go (of control) and lead towards an outburst of energy, not as a destructive moment, but as a possibility for re-orientation. THE EMOTIONALITY OF THE JAW asks how we define the „bodily“ (through bodies and embodyment) and how this relates to qualities such as clear boundaries and limits or contours. Ian Kaler is following lines of abstraction that rather enhance an understanding of how to conceive of, perceive and experience the bodily. (the emotionality of the jaw) is approaching a field of empathy through sharing a time and space which gets activated in the vibrancy of multiple bodies, thus operating on extensions of the bodily.

Following the series of group-pieces – Contingencies – THE EMOTIONALITY OF THE JAW is a further exploration of the format of the solo (as previously the series On Orientations). Together with Ian Kaler AQUARIAN JUGS a new alias from Jam Rostron aka Planningtorock will be on stage as musician / performer. Thus exploring the limits of the solo, as well as intersections of electronic and instrumental music, forming layers of the bodily through space, music and presence. After a number of site-specific pieces for ao. galleries and studios this work is conceived for the architecture and qualities of the blackbox as space, architecture and context.

THE EMOTIONALITY OF THE JAW develops a fluxus of pulsatile motion, explores swaying and blurring as (physical) states and locomotion and operates with loops and loopings of movement-sequences to create spacial inscriptions – leaving traces and markers that blur the bodily.

The series o.T. is a production of Ian Kaler in coproduction with HAU Hebbel am Ufer, ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival, Norrlandsoperan and Tanzquartier Wien in Cooperation with Tanzfabrik Berlin and APAP – Advancing Performing Arts Project – Performing Europe supported by Wien Kultur, Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin, Der Regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin Senatskanzlei Kulturelle Angelegenheiten and NATIONALE PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN) Koproduktionsförderung Tanz aus Mitteln des Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien aufgrund eines Beschlusses des Deutschen Bundestags.

Contingencies explores differences. Differences each performer meets in unpredictable detours of habitual movement patterns as well as differences that appear within the group of performers. Herein lay the possibilities, potentials and hazards that contribute to the emergence of Contingencies as textures and processes of being together that are permanently renewed. Thus multi-layered and simultaneous timelines are being practiced and become perceivable as such. Light, music and architecture each intervene autonomously within the unfolding of the performance.

Following the series On Orientations, that investigated i.a. the relation between bodies and space, Contingencies reflects on architecture as performative element. Starting from a first version of the piece future architectures of the piece will emerge in different spaces as specific variations of Contingencies. As such the piece Contingencies maintains always difference in itself. The group, in being together, as well as the relation of the performers with the audience thus remains in constant negotiation.

On Orientations|Untimely Encounters is part of a creative and physical >> practice series that Ian Kaler is developing in collaboration with different artists in and through different media, exploring different meanings of “orientation”. Following previous stages of work, Ian Kaler develops Untimely Encounters continue their own solo practice through encounters with other performers in the piece. The concept of orientation opens up to touch: to a touch that occurs without physical contact, that examines an intention or basic attitude before actual touch occurs. A second approach focuses on the idea of ​​parallel presences or opposing presences within the piece.

On Orientations|Untimely Encounters is part of a series of performances in which, together with invited artists, Ian Kaler explores different notions of orientation. On Orientations | Untimely Encounters – opens up the relation of orientation to touch, first exploring touch that’s happening detached from a physical contact, to test the conditions of potential encounters. Following the first edition, On Orientations | one place after, that adresses the laying, reclined body in contact with the floor, On Orientations |Untimely Encounters explores the various zones between uprightness and horizontality of the body. The piece is “unfinished” as such and is in negotiation through a set of possible postures, movement sequences and spatial patterns in every performance. Light, space, sound and bodies form coalitions and parallel movements that interlace in and through the perception of the audience.

On Orientations is designed as a series. Following (learning to look sideways) , in which the upright, standing body forms a basis of the piece, the first edition of On Orientations focuses on the lying, not fully upright body. One place after deals with the process nature of choreography, the piece as such is “unfinished” – with each performance again in negotiation, about a set of possible postures, movement sequences and spatial paths. All players meet in this space of possibilities. Light, space, music and body each form different coalitions and parallel movements and intertwine in and through the perceptions of the audience. In its interweaving / coupling of spatiality and temporality, On Orientations | one place after visual and perceptual practices that engage in an “in between” of sequence / progression and capture standstill as movement.

On Orientations | one place after is the first stage in a series exploring different notions of orientation. Following (learning to look sideways) in which the upright body constitutes a base of the piece one place after addresses the laying, reclined body. On Orientations | one place after exposes choreography as in process, conceiving of the piece as intentionally “unfinished“, emphasizing the potential of positions, movement sequences and space patterns in/for each performance. Thus opening up a space for potential encounters between all players – light, space, music and body forming various temporal coalitions and parallel movements that become entangled in and through the perception of the audience. Linking spatiality with temporality On Orientations | one place after adresses modes of perception that give time_space to the in-betweens of succession and progression, conceiving of stillness as motion/emotion.

What are possible ways of dividing, structuring or fragmenting presence in our togetherness?

LEARNING TO LOOK SIDEWAYS examines the tableau as an image carrier, as a constantly changing structure, and thus also reflects the process of the performers: an interplay of different possibilities to transform, structure and shift a common topography of physically present and absent into fragmented cycles of movement.

The performers appear shadowy, they are carriers of ambiguous, almost silent and yet changeable images. A series of interrupted and yet coherent poses/attitudes emerges, which never really create a common story between the performers, but nevertheless create images and situations.

The artists do not follow a fixed dramaturgy; they work simultaneously and shifted, together and separately. The dance develops analogously to an energy field that requires careful handling, redistribution and directive. It is precisely this energy that is fed back into the empty space, into the actors themselves and into the perception of the audience. It’s housed where there’s no obvious affirmation, so it’s just a kind of potentiality that’s being performed.