O H - 2

A choreographic project by
CBC – Christine Bonansea Company

O H - 2

A choreographic project by CBC – Christine Bonansea Company

D e s c r i p t i o n

OH-2 is the second part of the OnlyHuman Project series that inquires human conditioned reality.
This performance work is inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s book Human, All Too Human in which he organizes his thoughts regarding metaphysics, ethics, conflict and morality as expanded aphorisms. Through artistic collaboration with video and visual design, light environments, real time sound design and choreographic structures OH-2 interpretes and distills these ideas into a multidisciplinary performance that aims to blur the lines between audience and performer and merge the multiple, distinct humans into one body-mass.
Conceived and choreograph by:
Christine Bonansea

Original Music Composed and Performed by:
Nicole Carroll

Lighting Design by:
Asier Solana

Photography by:
Sigel Eschkol, Gaia Squarci.

Graphic Programming by:
Yoann Trellu

Danced by:
Yuri Shimaoka, David Mariano, Mei Yamanaka, Ayesha Katz, Sho Nakasatomi, Takeshi Ohashi, Jessica Akers.

Duration:
 60 min

V I D E O

C o n c e p t

OH-2 is a multimedia work created in collaboration with the visual artist Yoann Trellu and the composer Nicol Carroll.
This work the second part of the OH Project (Onlyhuman part1) that inquiries human conditioned reality. The performance series is inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s book Human, All Too Human in which he organizes his thoughts regarding metaphysics, ethics, conflict and morality as expanded aphorisms.

He suggested “becoming what one is” through the cultivation of instincts and various cognitive faculties — a plan that requires constant struggle with one’s psychological and intellectual inheritances. “He is called a free spirit who thinks differently from what, on the basis of his origin, environment, his class and profession, or on the basis of the dominant views of the age, would have been expected of him”.

These works seek to explore and express human conditioned reality, and introduce the philosophical questions: What is to be human? How do we simultaneously exist as individual beings, and as one entity? How do we perceive humanity? We are all conditioned by our history, environment, education. Our perceptions are codified! But beyond this, we also have the possibility to reassess our reality.
OH-2 takes the viewpoint that these questions are urgent and it is imperative to recognize humanity as unified.
The piece explores multiple bodies that become one, using the mass and density of a large cast of artists and the audience. The body-mass will play with various physical quantities and dynamics; revealing evolving movement and spatial transformation. Starting from the audience perspective, the space is reversed, like a portal, challenging dimensional perceptions and playing with the mass of the audience as a single body occupying the space, disturbed and modulated by spatial variations of the performing group. The bodies of both performers and audience members shift between states of conflict, separation, tension and agreement thus creating dynamic expression that simultaneously reveals human limitations. Together with my collaborators,through kinetic manipulation OH-2 aims to create an experience where perceptions are distorted and questioned, providing new perspective and understanding.

OH-2 performances engage local and global community. In a world challenged by radical and critical environmental changes, political and social tensions, it seems crucial to provide larger access to this work and to invite new communities to experience this urgent inquiry.

“The complete irresponsibility of man for his actions and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who understands must swallow”. Nietzsche
  • Performing Dates
    • 2020 - March, performed by AURA Dance Theater DOCK11 – Berlin2018 - November, DOCK11, Berlin Germany
    • 2019 - October, BIDAM, performed by Company  Jaigo Dance Theater, Busan Korea
    • 2019 - October, International Exchange Shin Dance Theater, Busan Korea.
    • 2019 - October, performed by AURA Dance Theater, Vilnius Lithuania
    • 2019 - October, AURA Dance Theater  OH-2 comission, Kaunas Lituenia.
    • 2019 - October, performed by AURA Dance Festival, Kaunas Lithuania 
    • 2019 - August, PREMIERE DOCK11, Berlin Germany 
    • 2018 - November, Work in Progress, DOCK11, Berlin Germany 
Premiere:
OH-2, DOCK11, 2019 (60min)

Residency:
EIMA Residency, Mallorca, 2019
Dance Italia S.P.A.M 2019

Production:
Christine Bonansea Company
Co-production DOCK11

  A R T I S T S

  • Christine Bonansea

    Christine bonansea is a New York-based dancer and choreographer with over 17 years of international experience in conceiving, directing/choreographing and performing movement-based works. She creates performances, installations, and films. She is the Artistic Director of Christine Bonansea Company, founded in 2010. Defined by expressive, virtuosic, improvisation-driven movement, her work inhabits an experimental, interdisciplinary, and collaborative environment in which other media – theater, video, visual art and design, spoken word, and music – play an important and integral part. Having studied Modern Literature at Paris’ La Sorbonne, she cites writers and philosophers as major influences.


    Bonansea studied dance with such luminaries as Regine Chopinot, Catherine Diverres, Mathilde Monnier, Ralph Lemon, Anna Halprin, Nancy Stark Smith, Nita Little. She had the pleasure to collaborate and perform with such artists as Catherine Galasso, Katie Duck, Sara Shelton Mann, Faustin Linyekula, Tino Sehgal, Yoshiko Chuma.


    In New York City, Bonansea’s work has been presented by Danspace Project, Dixon Place, and Movement Research at the Judson Church and JACK. Her dances have also been developed in art residencies and commissioned by numerous venues and festivals in the U.S. and worldwide, including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, ODC Theater, San Francisco International Arts Festival, and The Joe Goode ANNEX (San Francisco); Headwater Theater Linda Austin Space (Portland); Atlantic Center for the Arts (South Beach, Florida); DanceMatters (Toronto, Canada); Whenever Wherever Festival (Tokyo, Japan); The Centre Nationale De la Danse – Paris and at DOCK11 (Berlin, Germany). Her last work has been seen at JACK and the Judson Church in NYC and at Earthdance Creative residency in 2017.


    Additionally, Christine is also an accomplished dance teacher in both professional / performative and therapeutic setting.

    Christine Bonansea Company has been supported by funds from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, American Dance Abroad, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the French Consulate of San Francisco, among others.

  • Nicole Carroll

    Nicole Carroll is a composer, performer, sound designer, and builder based in Providence, RI. Her work spans installation, improvisation, and fixed media performance. She is active as a sound designer and composer in theater, performs electronic music under the alias “n0izmkr”, and builds custom synthesizers and performance sensor systems. She is also a bassoonist, currently developing a sensor system for augmented bassoon. Other research interests include soft circuits and wearable sensors, and AV synthesis on mobile devices and embedded systems. Through her work, she seeks to reconcile the natural world with technology. Themes found in her work derive from reflections on nature, supernatural phenomenon, literature, and the human psyche. Nicole holds an M.M. and B.M. in Composition from Bowling Green State University and Arkansas State University, respectively. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Music and Multimedia at the Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments (MEME) program at Brown University.

  • Yoann Trellu

    Yoann Trellu is a visual designer – video  programming


    Born 1976 in Chateaubriand, France.


    My first medium was photography. I started working with live projections in Nantes, France, in 1999. I first used photography and slide projections, but I quickly switched to computer and video projection. I’m interested in real time video software and especially Max/Msp/Jitter.


    In October 2003 I move my base of activity to Berlin and started to collaborate with dance productions. Since 2004 I worked on 50 stage productions with more than 10 different directors in Europe, USA and Asia. I create imagery as well as project-specific multimedia software.


    My main themes are

    •  Transformation, abstraction of an image.
    • Geometry and the idea that shapes and colors can tell stories.
    • The relationship between image and sound: what sound can change in the perception of an image and vice-versa.
    • Using automatic and random processes in order to achieve “computer creativity”: using the computer not only as a tool but as an artistic partner.
    • Improvisation, experimentation, surprises.

    Work selection:

    • Post-Theater (Berlin, New York, Tokyo), Konzert theater Bern (Switzerland)
    • Landestheater Coburg (Germany), Jess Curtis-Gravity (Berlin, San-Francisco)
    • Tatraum Projekt Schmidt (Dusseldorf), Ten Pen Chii (Berlin), Shang Chi Sun (Berlin, Taiwan)
    • Junge Staatsoper (Berlin), Theater Strahl (Berlin)
  • Asier Solana

    Light designer, based in Berlin germany.