‘I am shape, in a shape doing a shape’
Berlin, 2014
‘I am shape, in a shape doing a shape’ is a solo piece by the Berlin-based Italian choreograper and dancer Barbara Berti. In a free-flowing mixture of movement and language, of preconceived sequences and improvisation, Berti explores the interplay between the dancer and the spectators — an experiment in sensitivity where the slightest change in energy in the room may be picked up and amplified. The result is a performance full of quick shifts in atmosphere: from lyrical to humorous to matter-of-fact to philosophical.
This solo revels and bring in conversation the lecture that a public does within a performance in interaction with own inner space.
In her research in these past few year she has been exploring the human body and mind, developing an approach to dance performance through a method, that examines the effects of the hidden connection between the body, the mind and how those manifest in relation with an audience, started from a research in empathy.
‘I am shape, in a shape doing a shape’ won the HAU2 Theatre’s Jury Award during the 100° Festival in Berlin, 2014. Berti uses a system she began exploring in a duo piece called “Aoouuu”, developed in 2013. Presented with the first piece of the research in 2014 in the festival Tanztage Berlin.
Born and raised in Bologna, Italy, Barbara Berti bases herself in Berlin. She works on her own choreographic projects and collaborates with dance and theatre artists in performance art work through Western Europe, like: Judith Seng, Tino Seghal, Gabi Schilling.
She rooted her career in graphic design then in physical theatre and dance; continued studying different techniques in contemporary dance, contact improvisation and Body-Mind Centering approaches. she is interested in issues of kinesthetic empathy and the embodied transmission of physical experience in the interaction with the audience. In 2014, winner of the Jury prize HAU 2 of her solo “I am a shape, in a shape, doing a shape” for the festival 100° Be.
