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Keep Us Going is a participatory dance performance that focuses on endurance and physical achievements of both the dancers/ performers and the audience and is very loosely based on dance marathons in the USA that were popular in the 1920s and 30s. These dance marathons could last from a few days to a few weeks and resembled sport events as well as spectacles that incorporated theater, pop music and social dance.
In this work two dancers, Deborah Hazler and Sarah Holcman, continue dancing and performing their endurance, for as long as the audience physically participates (by keeping two treadmills continuously activated), while a moderator, Anat Stainberg, and a DJ, Malika Fankha, offer another layer of entertainment and communication, with the same goal to keep the performance going.
Keep Us Going activates feelings of competition as well as of support in the audience; competition between each other and support for the whole structure of the event. At the same time, subversively, it questions firstly, if endurance is such a necessary marker for achievement, and if we really need to keep going for an undefined amount of time, if there is nothing concrete to gain. Secondly, it brings a light to the tipping point between communal effort and perhaps hidden sadistic tendencies.
Concept Deborah Hazler
Dance/Performance Deborah Hazler and Sarah Holcman Moderator Anat Stainberg DJ/Sound Malika Fankha
Costume and stage design Anke Philipp Asssistence Olivia Schellander
A co-production of Angry Agnes Productions and brut Wien. With support by the City of Vienna’s department of Cultural Affairs and the Austrian Ministry of Culture.
Premiere: April 23 and 25, 2015, brut Künstlerhaus, Vienna