SASKIA HÖLBLING

SASKIA HÖLBLING
(Artistic direction, choreography)

Since 2002 Saskia Hölbling has concerned herself intensively with the forms of presentations of bodies that evade linear interpretation – in group formations as well as in solos. Which leads a critic to the following lines: “This anti-Barbie-Doll calls for a reinvention of the viewpoint (...) breaks with all conventions, with a cold, beautiful power full of silent intelligence as well as aggressive physicality.”

“I start from the utopia of the possibility that our bodies can be changed according to how we conceive them; from body conceptions that understand the body as a kind of mass of ideas that can assume any manifestation, even any form of being. Where an elbow takes decisions as much as a calf or a head. Not holding on, no insistence on an idea. Always in the flow of associations or the articulation of the body.

What would I like to achieve by this? An opening up of stereotypical worlds of imagination, a sensitisation to in-between spaces and alien fields, into which everybody is capable of diffusing. And I would like to encourage people to use the freedom of performance.”

At the moment Saskia Hölbling focuses on the signs of the times: Avoiding linear narratives the view of the world clears up again. Therewith catapults the spectator into the center of a kaleidoscopic fanning out of human gatherings, linguistic embeddings and situational absurdities. Born 1971 in Vienna, Saskia Hölbling was already presenting her first choreographies during her studies at the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien. Then she continued her formation at P.A.R.T.S in Brussels (founded by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker).

Since the foundation of her company DANS.KIAS in 1995, Saskia Hölbling has created more than 30 pieces with her ensemble. In parallel to her own choreographies she has performed in pieces by Bob Wilson (USA), Cie W. Dorner (Austria), Laurent Pichaud (France), Benoît Lachambre (Canada) and Anne Collod (France).

In 2000 she received the Prix d'Auteur du Conseil Général de Seine-Saint Denis/Bagnolet for “Do your desires still burn”, and in 2002 she was awarded the Austrian Dance Production Prize for “other feature”. In 2001 she collaborated with the Canadian choreographer Benoît Lachambre and the French video artist Laurent Goldring on her solo “rrr... (reading, readings, reading)”, which was presented at the opening of Tanzquartier Wien in 2001.
Her interest in contemporary music is manifested in staging works by Luciano Berio (Wien Modern 2002, Konzerthaus 2009) and Wolfgang Mitterer (Semperdepot 2004) as well as choreographing for Iannis Xenakis Oresteia under the direction of Carlus Padrissa (La fura dels baus) in collaboration with the Wiener Taschenoper on Karlsplatz as part of the Wiener Festwochen 2011.

In 2009 she directed and staged “Hamletmaschine” by Heiner Müller together with students of the Max Reinhardt Seminar. And with the French video artist and philosopher Laurent Goldring she created the “Squatting Projects” series (2011-2014).

With her current ensemble she broaches topical issues, inspired by the reflections of Jean-Luc Nancy: “Corps à Corps” (2016) at the Odeon, “Corps suspendus” (2017), “Things” (2018) and “Da-nach” (2019) at the Atelierhaus der Bildenden Künste Wien. For “through touches” (2021) Saskia Hölbling is continuing her research into future forms of contact and communication and her actual piece “fragments of desire” she questions our view of the world. „We must ask anew what the world wants of us, and what we want of it, everywhere, in all senses, urbi et orbi, all over the world and for the whole world, without (the) capital of the world but with the richness of the world.” Jean-Luc Nancy