An Attendee

Through a subtle and precarious approach,“An attendee” tries to guide the audience perspective into the details of space, along the edge of (un)spectacular events, towards the frictions of different encounters. Small stimulation open up to bigger questions, emotionally and energetically charged, as a single performer finds themself in the company of a set of things, fragments and sounds. Upon encounter they transform into subjects, into micro narratives and locations, sketching out a place of memory, loss and hope, where leftover voices give their account.

As the performer moves along and with them, a precise, soft and concentrated body emerges that tries to attend to these accounts, encapsulated in the environment. In the attempt of overcoming a present state of affair towards another state of “future”, the performer encounters internalised projections, obsessions, lingering violence and wounds.

The practice that this work brings to the foreground tries to investigate the utility of being in a broken place, that a priori to fixing or saving, asks to be embraced with delicacy and care, with trouble, yet attention. The viewer is invited to join and rest in this space too, without pushing for answers, judgement and absolution, and to give in to the disquiet.

By looking at ecological philosophies and environmental precarity, effectively supported by an isolating pandemic, Toni Steffens is investigating anew what the notions of “environment” can mean within the theatrical and artificial realm of the black box. In her practice she refers to the context of visual arts and balancing on the line between two different traditions of mediation, in between spectacle and installation, theatre and still life/exhibition. Being sensitive to western arts traditions, she imitates the “gallery space” to foreground the power of things, objects and more than human reality. Here is where she uses performance and theatre with a notable emphasis on movement to let those things open up, create mystery and discourse, take the lead of the story and question the human body in their arrangement and encounter.

Booking info:

length: 48 mins

I am travelling together with my light designer Paulina Prokop. The set deisgn and lights fit into two trollis and two odd sized luggages.

Credits 

Choreography and Performance: Toni Steffens

Set design: Nikola Knezevic and Toni Steffens  

Costume: Ginta Tinte

Lights: Paulina Prokop

Sound: Toni Steffens, Teresa Winter

Advise: Keerthi Basavarajaiah

Notable Attendees influencing the work: Alina Popa, Ana Mendieta, Camille Claudel, Jeanne Dielman

Production: Veem House for Performance, NBprojects, 2020 

Reviews:

Critics Choice, Theaterkrant 2020 : https://www.theaterkrant.nl/recensie/an-attendee/antonia-steffens-veem-house-for-performance/
Read the english translation: https://antoniasteffens.tumblr.com/post/646626984413265920/integrated-attention-for-the-soul-of-things

Foundation for german-polish collaborations, Wroclaw 2022:
https://fwpn.org.pl/mloda-redakcja/mloda-redakcja-2022/jezyk-duszy-9Z68GL?fbclid=IwAR33_fGVOkANuPBvCyZOlXqLKhY-I_6lcN23bkQelakUta6fmwV0829Pks4


Gaia Lamarre, Les Urbaines Festival 2021
Paulian Prokop, Veem House for Performance 2020
Kazimierz Zdzieblo, Mandala Festival 2022


Attending/attendees
Attending describes the process and attempt of overcoming binary modes of experiencing, typically when subobjects, strangers, “formerly known (entities) as x” cross paths, while they are also in complicated, transitional states. Not only linked to subobjective realties, the process can further be observed within ecosystems, that appear to deal with a temporal or lasting tension, like the state of reconfiguration of crisis, healing, imbalance and chaos, Often times, those localities deal with strong emotionally charged confusion or hopelessness and are at the verge of “giving up”. Attending operates mostly as a mobiliser of a potential 3rd space, challenging the binary process of identity-making. It aspires to dissolve the phallic crisis by materialising agents beyond their self-proclaimed defined boundaries and deliberately attune to the procedures of space from “within between” the present entities. Colloquial called “attendees”, these spaces operate as mediators, that allow for cross-interference,-information and mutual regulation. Attending offers ways to operate within disquiet but leave entities, subobjects and localities usually permanently altered.

Weaving Passages for the momentous

An Attendee

Orange Rest/Sacrifice

Spinner

Metamotion for 270degrees

Hope, Test

Night Flying Project

Movement

delineations

Unfamiliarities

DATES/ NEWS

2-3/09/2023: "Line,lo0sing line", Research Presentation at Oldenaller, commissioned by Fransien van der Putt, working with the archive of painter Claartje Berger
3-5/07/2023: Research residency at Oldenaller, commissioned by Fransien van der Putt, working with the archive of painter Claartje Berger
23/06/2023: "THE FATE CAST / IN THE SEARCH / OF FOUR PETALS", during " Even in the dark I know I am sleeping with myself" at Perdu Amsterdam, Collaboration with Mercedes Azpilicueta
24/05/2023: "SPRING WOUNDS" as part of the warp, a shared evening at KUNSTKAPEL, AMSTERDAM
14/04/2023: "ORANGE REST/ SACRIFICE", ATELIERS PACT ZOLLVEREIN, ESSEN
30/03/2023: "WEAVING PASSAGES FOR THE MOMENTOUS", Extra Intra Reader #2 :A SLIGHT BREATH, editors HARRIET FOYSTER, ROSIE HAWARD, NELL SCHWAN, editorial board for  intercurricular Programmes, GERRIT RIETVELD ACADEMY, SAN SERIFFE, AMSTERDAM 2023
10/11/2022:  "HOPE,TEST- A STRATEGY OF PERFORMATIVE MEMORIES", PUBLISHER: 4BID GALLERY AMSTERDAM
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022: "SPINAL CATASTROPHE" RESEARCH PROJECT, SUPPORTED BY NEUSTART KULTUR, #TAKE HEART, PACT ZOLLVEREIN, BERLIN/AMSTERDAM, RESEARCH
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022: DRAMATURGY FOR ELVAN TEKIN, TANZFABRIK BERLIN
08/07/2022: "THE FATE CAST / IN THE SEARCH / OF FOUR PETALS", DURING "CHANGE FEELING" , COLLABORATION WITH MERCEDES AZPILICUETA, VANABBE MUSEUM EINDHOVEN  
02+03/07/2022: "ON J0YFUL MILITANCY", PERFORMING FOR MERCEDES AZPILICUETA, ROZENSTRAAT, AMSTERDAM
19/05/2022: "SPINNER" PREMIER AT FLAM FESTIVAL AMSTERDAM
08/05/2022: "AN ATTENDEE" MANDALA FESTIVAL, WROCLAV
14/03-04/04: RESIDENCY AT WORKSPACE BRUSSELS