8 November 2021

The Akademie der Künste invites its members to the Autumn General Assembly and Presidential Election (12 – 14 November)

Cesc Gelabert performs Gerhard Bohner’s dance solo Showing Black and White (Hanseatenweg, 13 November)

The 57th General Assembly of the Akademie der Künste will be held in Berlin from 12 to 14 November 2021. The main point on the agenda will be the new election of the senate, the highest decision-making authority of the Akademie der Künste. The President and Vice President will be elected, along with the directors and deputy directors of the six sections, all of whom who will serve a three-year term. The filmmaker Jeanine Meerapfel and the author and playwright Kathrin Röggla have served as President and Vice President since 2015. The election results will be announced on Saturday evening. In addition, there will also be an election of new members. The names of the newly elected artists will be disclosed at a later date, after they have accepted the votes.

On the occasion of the General Assembly, Gerhard Bohner’s dance solo Showing Black and White – Practices for a Choreographer will be performed in the adaptation by Cesc Gelabert. The dancer and choreographer Gerhard Bohner (1936–1992) premiered the solo, which at the time still bore the subtitle “Ballet ohne Tänzer” (or “Ballet without dancers”), at the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg in 1983. The Catalonian dancer Cesc Gelabert has been reconstructing Bohner’s solo works for years; his version of Showing Black and White came about in 2010 as a co-production between the Akademie der Künste and Tanzquartier Wien.

In its reduction of the language of dance, the solo ties into the current Akademie exhibition “NOTHINGTOSEENESS – Void/White/Silence”. Within the space created by set designer Axel Manthey and accompanied by the music of Georg Friedrich Händel and Glenn Branca, Bohner created a choreography that “depiction of how it should be”, in which movement is mainly suggested and sketched out, and the dialogue between choreographer and dancer is rendered abstract through the interactions with objects. At the same time, Bohner borrows from Oskar Schlemmer’s focus on material, thereby showing “how exciting it can be to move just one little finger”.

Event information
Showing Black and White – Practices for a Choreographer
Cesc Gelabert dances a solo by Gerhard Bohner
Saturday, 13 November, 8 pm, admission € 13/7
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin, Tel. 030 200 57-1000

Press tickets: Reservations at presse@adk.de, Tel. 030 200 57-1514