Florentina Holzinger

Étude for Church is a part of a series of études that I have been performing with my team in public spaces since 2020. The essence of these études is the very literal creation of sound with and through the body as an instrument. I played a lot of Chopin on and off the piano as a child. The repetition of technical difficulties plays into the definition of an étude- I wanted to represent that musically as well as to embody it. Stunt elements usually play a big role in our études, we like to use the effects repertoire from stunts for sound production (crashes, collisions, etc).  In this étude, however, things were a bit quieter.
We are at the moment in preparation for an opera project that takes on the topic of the church. It starts with a 1 act opera by P. Hindemith called Sankta Susanne, which plays in a convent and centers around fantasies surrounding the female libido.
The essence of our series of études lies in the physical experiment with body and physical extensions (often of technical nature) as literal instruments. To make very literal compositions with the body.
For Atonal we use a 2t church bell as an extension or as an object with which to merge to become a sort of bell-hybrid, a human bell. The whole thing has now evolved into a noisy tryptich. So yes here we are certainly working off of certain symbolism and rituals from Catholicism and their relation to physicality. It became a very straightforward musical composition for a bell and 5 bodies hitting it.
There are many things fascinating about an iron bell as an object. The production process is immense, most of them hold up to hundreds of years of complex history and changes of meaning throughout the years. Not to mention the sound and resonance of a 2t iron object.

I must say here, I grew up more or less atheistic, but of course growing up in a country (Austria) culturally very shaped by catholicism. I had an almost obsessive fascination as a kid with catholic symbols and miracles and the more extreme mysticism seeping in from eastern and southern Europe. When I was a teenager in Austria, interested in subculture and the alternative scene I developed of course a very critical distance to the church- in Austria the Catholic Church was mainly associated with abuse stories from the priest seminary in St. Pölten of the late 90s.
Later I had excursions in other world religions, I read the Qur’an and Tao Te Ching- I realised that all of this can be read in similar ways. I got completely atheistic and dedicated myself to dance. I find it slightly problematic to phrase theatre or dance as spiritual practice in my context, but must admit (with a wink) it satisfies for me certain aspects of a religious practice. Nowadays I find it funny to be so bold as to call the theatre a church- hence Étude for Church.

If I can provide an audience with a new or different experience of some kind, I am already extremely satisfied. If I can fuck with their concepts about what is right and wrong- even better. I like humor. I don’t take art very seriously. For me, art can be complicated, defying, questioning the social consensus, cynical, and a challenge to everyone involved. I expect a lot from my audience: openness, trust, participation, courage and above all time. Beautiful and ugly, good and bad - what fascinates me about art and especially dance is that these supposed opposites are so close together and interchangeable.

I like text as a theatrical tool. But it is more used for distraction or to make certain jokes to be honest. Our theatrical main medium in shows is the body. I take it very seriously as a tool.
As a trained dancer to objectify the body does not necessarily have a bad connotation. It is first and for all material to work with and to exercise control over. Don’t get me wrong: I come from an experimental dance background, where concepts around sensing and feeling  are definitely big motivators for movement. I don’t come from particularly formal dance, yet I could describe myself as a formalist. Shapes in time and space do matter to me as a choreographer. I guess for me it felt natural that a shape can be also the inside of the body, or even an imagined extension of the body.
People always describe the work as radical, or pushing physical boundaries. My point of view is that the body is my lab and I take physical experiments quite seriously. I am curious about researching dance as a means for superhuman power or possibly transcendence. At the same time, I am comfortable calling myself a Charlatan - I mean theatre is all about illusion. The sphere were reality and illusion collide or better work together interests me very much. [What is] physically possible is often that which the mind can comprehend: so I try to educate my mind more than anything.
A lot of people also associate self harm or violence with the work. As a dancer I am very conscious that the body is my medium and has to be treated and cared for like an instrument if you want to reuse it. At the same time: training can be a lot of things and doesn’t need to look like a feat of athleticism or like health care. Especially the vulnerable or multiple abled body usually has a high level skill set. Usually in performance we hardly ever push any limits. My rehearsal processes can be very extensive because I really want to allow bodies to establish a practice that makes a performance just another day at the office.

As mentioned before we are working on an opera project at the moment. It will be quite a new experience for us. All the études we did in public spaces this year are research steps for this. It will be a challenge because we will have to deal with the structures of opera institutions, but that also makes it exciting. In our opera we take on the church. Musically we will combine classical orchestra and choir with noise musicians and sounding bodies. It will be an orchestrated mass- we want to blow people's minds.

Low budget costume.

Everybody.

Abuse of it comes as no surprise (Jenny Holzer).

A waste of time and money––very necessary.