SUN. 02.10.2022, Movement and Discussion

Contact Improvisation Training (Giulia,
Lex and Jingyun)

We had two hours practice of contract improvisation – or a form of social dancing. It is kind of non-verbal communication between the group. Lex led the session, and Giulia
proposed further exercises. It was a very close moment to share movement practice and
to know everyone during the practice.
In the afternoon, we spoke more about the practical aspects of our work and we spoke about the expectation of “makingoff” and the relationship between the artist and the audience. It opened the door to our work next week.
During the dinner, we spoke together about our understanding of what it means to be professional and how our personal life and emotions can be fitted into our work.
We went hunting for possible venues for makingoff and we ended up visiting two very different places in Chemnitz – Späti and Ziententreff, which are only 15 meters away from each other.

SUN. 02.10.2022, Researching Spaces

Zietentreff was not our target place,
but we bumped into the place accicentally. It would not be a place which we would have visited by ourselves, but Jiri motivated the group to enter and experience an unexpected place. The place was filled with smokers and game maschines. After sitting and drinking for a while, we decided to play dart. When we entered, we had the feeling of not being welcomed; and when we left, we felt a more friendly atmosphere.

MON. 03.10.2022, Ship-gathering visit, further practice

On Mondy we visited the coast of lake Schlossteich. It was FEIERTAG in Germany and on the cost the SchiffModellKlub Chemnitz was meeting and having a show if their models of boats and machines. Older men and women from Chemnitz, very interesting subculture, had a beautiful time with theit toys swimming on the water. We met there another type of audience watching the surface of water, interacting togheter like friends. Our research of the public space of Chemnitz was again richer and more complete.

In the afternoon we continued with Lex’s workshop with people from Ukraine. Afterwards, we spent time continuing our self-introduction practice.
Afterwards Lex and Jingyun furthered the writing practice from Jingyun in handwriting Russian.

TUE. 04.10.2022, Breakfast in hotel, Practice at Galeria, lecture visit

Tuesday morning we went to the tallest building in Chemnitz and had breakfast in the restaurant on 26th floor.

Tuesday was also our fisrt body research in the space we decided to use for the Makingoff. We were performers and also the audience for ourselves.
Working individually in the public space for 15 minutes we were trying to come into contact with the passengers, we were trying to feel our potentials in the space, our relationship to the space-objects-people. Most of materials founded these days we continued to develop in next days.

Our second session on Tuesday was based in the sofa in the 2nd floor of the Kaufhof shopping mall. We discussed the possibility of sharing our experiences with audience here, in the relationship between sofa-shopping mall-window and the square with passengers. We discussed everything deep again from very beginning, having very clear arguments between doing it here and not doing it here. Main topic of hasitation to move in the public space in the front of audience was the risk of USING and MISSUSING passangers for artistic effect and having interesting materials. We agreed in the end that this risk is very important and we do not want to misuse the people.

WED. 05.10.2022, further practice on the square, discussion with Nai Wen

Working on the square, continuing to brainstorm ideas for public space, going shopping for objects to play with.

Questions from Nai Wen:
– a moment where you feel you are most connect: visit the boat workshop, blocking doors at späti, playing dart at Zieten Treff,
– a moment where you feel most disconnected
Making off:
– making off changed our schedule and make it less spontaneous and more focused on the making off
– Audience comes with some expectations. How do we deal with it?
while answering those questions we came up with further questions such as:
– what kind of space would we create in order for the audience of the makingoff to be brave enough to dive into a process-oriented sharing.
– how would the audience be able to be brave and open to feel the disconfort?
– what are the borders in stimulating interaction with people?
– what is global about us in relation to the locals of chemnitz?
We decided to bring in objects – a chair. And we played with the possibilites of using this chair in the public space.
We developed four questions for our practice on the square:
1. what I feel in the space (feelings about space, people around etc.)
2. how I feel with my body
3. when I do something, is it important to have people around or not / is it important for this action to have audience or not
4. where is the best place for me on the square

THUR. 06.10.2022, further practice on the square with audience

This day was our first day with a viewer (Anna) from outside. We met in the morning, having a discussion about the structure of Makingoff for Saturday and Sunday. We are going to share two different events, one of them on Saturday on the square, second on Sunday in the Bürgerzentrum. But they are actually two parts of one two-days-long Making Off of Flausen Chemnitz 2022.
After this concept´s discussion we moved to our laboratory in the Kaufhof Shopping Mall, there we also met our first viewer, first person for sharing. For the first time of our research we got into the contact with the public space together, all of us at one moment, like a team. We worked in this constellation for one hour. Then we shared our experiences with our viewer. The one hour flew by very fast.