In her dance for face and voice, Jule Flierl questions the unity of vocal performance and facial gesture that is meant to convey emotions in opera. What happens when these two elements fall apart? Flierl sings disquietingly soaring passages from Richard Wagner’s Isoldes Liebestod while her suffering facial expressions lead a life of their own. This choreography is inspired by the vocal dance of the avant-garde dancer Valeska Gert, who scandalized Berlin audiences in the 1920s with her exaggerated parodies of culturally significant movements from life. Flierl takes Gert’s method to the point of dissociation, giving the negative psychiatric connotations of the term a more positive twist. Her voice and face become independent actors, defying audience expectations. Flierl thus refuses to fulfil any wish for the purported unity of body and soul, or any clearly identifiable emotions. Instead, the body of the future as she imagines it, is always moving in several directions at once, thus evading all ascribed identities or clichés.

Choreography, concept, and performance: Jule Flierl

Link

https://2019.steirischerherbst.at/en/program/artists/424/jule-flierl