THE SOURCE CODE – a moving archive
Jochen Roller
a TANZFONDS ERBE project
Web-launch and presentation in the context of 8. Tanznacht Berlin 2014:
Saturday, 30. August, 12 h, Uferstudios, Studio 5, Uferstr. 8/23, 13357 Berlin
Jochen Roller’s The Source Code is an online archive that documents the attempt to re-create the last dance drama „Errand into the Maze“ of Viennese choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser from 1954. The choreographer was one of Austria’s most prominent exponents of Ausdruckstanz. After Hitler’s annexation of Austria, the Jewish choreographer fled to Sydney. In exile, she re-launched her dance company and became the founding mother of modern dance in Australia.
The re-creation of „Errand into the Maze“ aims to not only re-construct the dance steps, but to re-create the political, social and cultural context of the piece. Together with four contemporary Australian choreographers, Jochen Roller brought back the 60 year-old choreography to a dance studio in Sydney. Here, the group interacted with former members of the Bodenwieser dance group in order to not only get the steps right, but also trying to understand the emotional and intellectual disposition of the choreographer who died shortly after the creation of the piece.
On www.thesourcecode.de, the user gets access to parts of the dance re-creation as well as to interviews, photos, letters and other testimonies. As all files on the interactive website are extensively inter-linked with each other, the user will re-create his/her own version of the dance piece, according to the documents that are selected. Instead of presenting a final version of a reconstructed piece of choreography, Jochen Roller invites his online audience to create multiple versions/visions of a seminal piece of choreography. This interactive process reflects on the subjectivity of memory, the relativity of facts and the impossibility of dance reconstruction.
Concept, Research, Reconstruction and Archiving: Jochen Roller
Video Documentation: Andrea Keiz
Archiving: Theresa Willeke
Research: Elisabeth Nehring
Reconstruction Errand into the Maze: Nadia Cusimano, Matthew Day, Latai Taumoepeau, Lizzie Thomson
Custodian of the Bodenwieser Archives: Barbara Cuckson
Bodenwieser Advisors: Carol Brown, Lee Christofis, Biruta Clark, Moira Claux, Barbara Cuckson, Shona Dunlop-MacTavish, Elaine Vallence
Additional Research: Jan Poddebsky
Additional Archiving: Andreas Russe
Programming: Enno Herwig/wemove digital solutions
Graphic Design: Claudia Heynen
Production: DepArtment
A production by Jochen Roller and DepArtment.
Funded by TANZFONDS ERBE – An initiative by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. With the support of: Rozelle School for Visual Arts, Sydney.