deufert + plischke / frankfurter küche (Leipzig)

Kattrin Deufert is an actress and video artist. Her doctoral thesis was on John Cage's 'theatre of presence'. Thomas Plischke is a dancer, choreographer and video artist, and a former student at PARTS, the dance school founded by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The work of deufert + plischke / frankfurter küche (Leipzig) is on the borderline between theory and practice: choreography as a critical practice. Recurrent themes in the work of this promising German twosome are incest, melancholy, homophobia, trauma, and transsexuality. At the same time, it investigates the (spatial) relationship between the audience and what is happening on stage. For instance, spectators are sometimes seated facing each other, with the performers in the middle: seeing and being seen. Convinced of the potential impact of their work on the practice of dance, deSingel is co-producing a new production, 'as if (it was beautiful)', whose first performance will be in Vienna on 8 July 2004.