Antje Pfundtner

Stage project: Nimmer

Antje Pfundtner's initial question is: How does a performance change, when either children or adults are included or are audience guests? Her stage proposal consist in two duets, both sharing the same theme: hosting. The guests in the audience are either children or adults. So, two formats will be developed, two duets with a guest. Who is the guest of the duet on the stage? The search is part of the research process during which Antje Pfundtner would like to enter into a dialogue with people who in different ways operate in the field of "hosting" and the field of "producing for children".

Theoretical projects

To be developed and presented in the framework of a think tank.

Antje Pfundtner as a Guest

Antje Pfundtner conducts research on the theme of hosting not only in her choreographies, but also through formats in which she intervenes discursively as an artist. She is available as a guest. This occassion determines the resulting format of her intervention in the framework of the stage piece For whom?. Depending on the context and the the extension of the invitation, she develop models of hospitality and realise them on location. What does she bring along for her host? Her interest is the question of the political implication, of hospitality or friendship and the promise of a gathering resulting from it. A choreographic exchange, an exchange with local artists on site, round tables with artists and audience members, or the offer to make herself useful as a guest and cook for the audience each evening... The gestures of the gift know no limits. All that is needed is an invitation.

The following 2 formats can be developed in the framework of Antje Pfundtner as a Guest as a guest or separatedly:

Dance + House

In different meetings based on the open space-method with artists, producers, dramaturges, cultural managers, theorists, etc. questions are raised for the agenda of a public plattform, which will focus on the democratic principle and on the participation of the contemporary dance scene in the practice of producing. The subsequent symposium, consisting of keynotes, dialogues and roundtables will explore various aspects of collaboration, the sharing and distribution of interests and roles in the context of production and communication of artistic works. Facts and ideal values, which form the basis of artistic, cultural political and institutional decisions, as well as issues around the current economics of producing will be confronted with each other.

Antje Pfundtner will host and invite to discuss the strategies of the incalculable and the surplus in the production of artistic thinking and develop new territories for art and its audience.

Dance + Curator

What happens to never used ideas? For what reasons did these ideas die? Because there was no artist who produced it? Because too many curators had the same idea at the same time? Because there was no money for it? Antje Pfundtner would like to develop a model of cooperation in which various organizers and curators give their never used ideas and enter therefore in a direct artistic exchange with the company. Such a process will only be possible on a confidential basis and a comforting situation at the TABLE. Maybe great food should play a part in this! There will be talks and interviews to clarify why these ideas have never been realized. Then the artist will think about a model of cooperation and a way how to exchange and to develop the material, f.ex.:

a) The curator gives the idea completely away, because he/she would like to be surprised how Antje Pfundtner will transform, enrich etc. this idea.

b) Or he/she would like to be directly involved in this process? Then he/she must be engaged in it, f.ex. in the rehearsals with the company and deal with the confrontation with his/ her idea.

The context and the way of "delivery" of the ideas will determine the resulting artistic formats.

Antje Pfundtner was trained at the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Amsterdam in the field of Moderne Theaterdans. As a dancer, she worked with, among others, Michele Anne de Mey, Marcelo Evelin, Toni Vezich and David Hernández. She received various scholarships that have taken her to New York, to the Viennese DanceWEB, and other places. She also received the Patenschaftsfond of the NRW Arts Foundation.

She has been living in Hamburg since 2001. Her solo eigenSinn (2003) was performed at the German Dance Platform 2004 in Düsseldorf and toured internationally with great success. Further group works were produced, selbstinschuld (2005), inDeckung (2007) and RES(E)T (2008), as well as the cooperation piece Outlanders (2006) with Chinese choreographer Wen Hui from the Living Dance Studio in Beijing (China).

Alongside various commissioned works, Antje Pfundtner holds international workshops. Upon the invitation of Linz09, she participated in what was probably Europe's largest school project I like to move it move it. In conjunction with the international production collective O is not a Company, she developed the solo TIM ACY that premiered in April 2010 at Kampnagel/Hamburg and was shown at the German Dance Platform 2012 in Dresden. The duet VERTANZT (2011), which she choreographed, was also performed at Kampnagel.

In 2012, as the first female choreographer, received the three-year conception funding of the Hamburger Kulturbehörde for the foundation of her company, Antje Pfundtner in Gessellschaft. Under this label, her next production, Nussknacker, with 9 danceers, premiered at Kampagnel on 12/12/2012 and will be shown in June 2013 in the frame of the Dance Congress in Düsseldorf.