What is the future of love? In her new HAU co-production Dragana Bulut explores the commodification of love. Together with the companion robot Harmony, the two performers host the audience at the choreographic speed dating performance for a world in a crisis of intimacy. Through alternating between dating and performative scenarios, they explore the dilemmas of connection: How do dating platforms, relationships mediated by algorithms and love robots change the way we fall in love? If love needs reciprocity, can technology provide it? Or what might we scavenge from its failures? “Beyond Love” is the third part in Dragana Bulut’s trilogy probing the way the emotional spheres are choreographed by the forces of market commodification and technology. After “Behind Fear” and “Happyology – Tears of Joy”, it deals with love in the current third part.
Concept, artistic direction, choreography, and performance: Dragana Bulut
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander, Andrew Hardwidge
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge
Music and Sound Design: Evelyn Saylor
Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich
Costume Design: Melisa Minca
Stage Design: Jonas Maria Droste, Dragana Bulut
Research specialists: Henrich Mellmann, Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin
Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (TATWERK)
Assistance: Beatrice Zanesco
Teasers: Mate Ugrin
Press: Nora Gores
Thanks to: Bojana Cvejic, Florian Malzacher, Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, PACT Zollverein (Essen). Supported by: Hauptstadtkulturfonds. In cooperation with: TATWERK | Performative Research.
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander, Andrew Hardwidge
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge
Music and Sound Design: Evelyn Saylor
Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich
Costume Design: Melisa Minca
Stage Design: Jonas Maria Droste, Dragana Bulut
Research specialists: Henrich Mellmann, Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin
Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (TATWERK)
Assistance: Beatrice Zanesco
Teasers: Mate Ugrin
Press: Nora Gores
Thanks to: Bojana Cvejic, Florian Malzacher, Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, PACT Zollverein (Essen). Supported by: Hauptstadtkulturfonds. In cooperation with: TATWERK | Performative Research.
Love at First Byte is a continuation of Dragana Bulut’s research on commodification of emotions. After dealing with the commodification of happiness and fear in her recent works, she now investigates the commodification of love and its social choreography as a tool to reflect on social changes in our affective realm.
This research unpacks the complex relationship between love and technology, focusing on the questions of ethics and the implications new technologies have on the future of human relations. Can technological developments offer alternatives of love, instead of providing further grounds for its commodification?
This research unpacks the complex relationship between love and technology, focusing on the questions of ethics and the implications new technologies have on the future of human relations. Can technological developments offer alternatives of love, instead of providing further grounds for its commodification?
Concept, artistic direction, research leader: Dragana Bulut
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich Technical support: Heinrich Mellman Experts Input: Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin Assistance: Benjamin Fischer, Beatrice Zanesco Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (Tatwerk)
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: PACT Zollverein (Essen). The realisation of the project has been made possible with funding from the DAKU funds. In co-operation with Tatwerk. Supported by Realbotix
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich Technical support: Heinrich Mellman Experts Input: Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin Assistance: Benjamin Fischer, Beatrice Zanesco Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (Tatwerk)
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: PACT Zollverein (Essen). The realisation of the project has been made possible with funding from the DAKU funds. In co-operation with Tatwerk. Supported by Realbotix
Behind Fear
Better safe than sorry! In her new production Dragana Bulut stages choreographies of fear by exploring paradoxes of security and safety culture. Through the playful appropriation of safety and wellness procedures Behind Fear navigates external as well as an internal sense of safety and mechanisms through which our desire for it is constructed. The security guard team attempts to secure the viewer from the horror of the moving, lurking danger that is too quick to be captured, yet real enough to affect. When confronted with the dangers of the theater space we can fight, flight, freeze or take precautionary measures. But what if we take a risk to enjoy their dangerous beauty?
Concept, artistic direction, choreography and performance: Dragana Bulut
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander, Tian Rotteveel, Mohanad Al-Rim, Nancy Meissner
Dramaturgical Advice: Maja Zimmermann, Thomas Schaupp
Music and Sound Design: Tian Rotteveel
Lighting Design: Elliott Cennetoglu
Stage Design: Jonas Maria Droste
Research collaboration: Minna Partanen
Research specialist: Franziska Dietrich, Julian Hanich, Alex Williams, Carnelian King, Ben Woodard, Sebastian Vogt
Production Management: Marit Buchmeier, Lisanne Grotz / xplusdrei Produktionsbüro
Teaser and Photos: Mate Ugrin
Thanks to: Bojana Cvejic ,Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte, Luka Ivanovic
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, PACT Zollverein (Essen). The realization of the project has been made possible with funding from the Capital Cultural Fund.
Dragana Bulut “Behind Fear” | Teaser from HAU Hebbel am Ufer on Vimeo.
photo@Dorothea Tuch
What will our future look like, starting with this present now? In a time of constant uncertainties, in her new production Dragana Bulut explores how people use different strategies in order to predict and also shape their future. Together on stage with a semi-humanoid robot, she looks into the tension between determinism, free will and choice making. Thereby she also refers to the influential but almost forgotten play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, who introduced the term ‘robot’. Using tools of classic science fiction, the performance time travels through the temporality of its own production within the contemporary art market. Is the future already determined by the present? If so, what happens when we sacrifice the present for the construction of the future?
Concept, artistic direction and choreography: Dragana Bulut / By and with: Dani Brown, Dragana Bulut / Dramaturgy: Ana Vujanović, Maja Zimmermann / Lighting Design: Joseph Wegmann / Sound Design: Raphaela Andrade Cordova / Sound Research: Tian Rotteveel / Consulting Stage & Light Design: Jonas Maria Droste / Artistic Collaboration: Kareth Schaffer / Robot Programming: ShowBotiXX (Thorben Seeland), Heinrich Mellmann / Press: AugustinPR / Photo- and Video Documentation: Marta Popivoda / Production Management: Joseph Wegmann, Francesca Spisto / Production Assistance: Tamara Antonijević
Credits
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, PACT Zollverein (Essen). Funded by: Berlin Senat Department for Culture and Europe, by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Supported by: Bitef Theater Belgrade, Station Service for contemporary dance Belgrade. In co-operation with: ShowBotiXX (Rainer E. Becker and Matthias Hoffman). Thanks to: Adaptive Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Credits
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, PACT Zollverein (Essen). Funded by: Berlin Senat Department for Culture and Europe, by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Supported by: Bitef Theater Belgrade, Station Service for contemporary dance Belgrade. In co-operation with: ShowBotiXX (Rainer E. Becker and Matthias Hoffman). Thanks to: Adaptive Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
FUTURE FORTUNE from Dragana Bulut on Vimeo.
photo @Dorothea TuchSelf-optimization is on everyone’s tongue. So, how much does the prevailing requirement to always be happy influence our behaviour and our subjectivity? In her first HAU co-production, Dragana Bulut and her team examine the promises and paradoxes of positive psychology. To this end, life coaching plays a big role in increasing physical and mental well-being. Through the playful appropriation and deconstruction of different coaching methods, the choreographer places individual desires in contrast with the commercialization and instrumentalisation of happiness and paints an uncanny picture of the individual torn by sadness-burning life strategies. With this work, Dragana Bulut continues her staging of social choreographies, in continual pursuit of the question of how our feelings , desires and fears are commodified.
Concept, artistic direction and choreography Dragana Bulut
By and with Andrew Hardwidge, Kareth Schaffer
Dramaturgy Ana Vujanović
Lighting design Joseph Wegmann
Sound design Neda Sanai
Artistic assistance Helen Schröder
Press and production björn & björn
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. Supported by PACT Zollverein Essen and Station Service for Contemporary Dance Belgrade. Thanks to: Chris Scherer, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Zeina Hanna, Ksenija Djurović, Janja Valjarevic
By and with Andrew Hardwidge, Kareth Schaffer
Dramaturgy Ana Vujanović
Lighting design Joseph Wegmann
Sound design Neda Sanai
Artistic assistance Helen Schröder
Press and production björn & björn
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. Supported by PACT Zollverein Essen and Station Service for Contemporary Dance Belgrade. Thanks to: Chris Scherer, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins, Zeina Hanna, Ksenija Djurović, Janja Valjarevic
Happyology by Dragana Bulut | 10. – 13. October 2018 | HAU3 Hebbel am Ufer Berlin from work book on Vimeo.