2017 JESENÍKY ALTVATER FESTIVAL

Skills: Performance, Stage Setting, Video Installation, Videomapping

Manuela Hartel (München/DE) performance, video installation, set, voice & lyrics
Jaroslav Koran (Prag/CH) composition, percussion, beat & effect instruments

During the German-Czech Cultural Spring 2017, Rites de passage was shown at the Jeseníky Altvater Festival for Art, Literature and Music IM ZENTRUM (http://imzentrum.eu). In the border area with Poland, the church of Zalesi / Waldek – destroyed in 1989 – was temporarily rebuilt in the midst of its ruin through the audiovisual installation. The architectural sculpture as a reproduction of the sanctuary of the St. Barbara Church was designed and built especially for Rites de passage by the artists group REZ (Michal Mihalčík, Jakub Kročil and Jonás Lacnák). The object with swing remains as a permanent, artistic installation on site.

On a swing, the performer oscillates from an imaginary apse, centered towards the audience, into the non-existent nave and out again. Due to the same movements, the natural balance starts to waver or it comes, medically, to balance disorder. The performer swings to transformation, is entity and transfer in personal union. Detachment, separation, the process becomes the threshold rite or the Rites de passage. By video-mapping onto the multi-layered projection surfaces, on swing and performer, the imaginary altar space becomes a temporary experience. The church as a cultural space is thus perceived as a space for prayer, that is, for communication and hope. Pendulum is a meditative act, it moves between reality and possibility and alternately creates distance and proximity. The natural balance wavers, borders which exist, existed, or could exist, are dissolving and everything flows. 

INTERVIEW with Jaroslav Koran & Manuela Hartel