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DYAD

2014-2015, Performance cycle in nine parts

Interested in what divides and separates and how divisions are applied socially and politically as mechanisms, with DYAD, VestAndPage look into the dangers of dichotomy, attachments to dualism, and the ego paradox. Through bold bodily images and tense physicality, they question how polarities are employed as practical tools of ideology, propaganda or collective manipulation. Each episode starts with the above quote and a conflictive moment between a mouse and a rabbit, both burrowers and symbols of mediation, procreation and vulnerability.

 

The performance cycle has been developed and presented on VestAndPage's 2014/2015 tour with stations in Toronto (Black and White), Amsterdam (One and Two), Zagreb (You and Me), Leipzig (Past and Present), Sokołowsko (Liquid and Solid), Bristol (Full and Empty), Aberdeen (Inside and Outside), and closed in a 15-hour durational performance in Moscow (Open and Closed).

DYAD I and II: Black and White

hub14, Toronto, ON (CA)

Two 2-hour performances on the occasion of LONG-TERM by LINK&PIN Performance Series, curated by Adriana Disman and Sandrine Schaefer, co-presented by FADO Performance Art Centre

12 - 13 April 2014

 

Realised with the kind support of Suanne McGregor

Photographs by Henry Chan and Sandrine Schaefer

Video captured and edited by Sandrine Schaefer

VestAndPage
Verena Stenke
VestAndPage
Verena Stenke
Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes
Andrea Pagnes
Andrea Pagnes
VestAndPage
VestAndPage

"Andrea Pagnes is blindfolded and seated at a small table. He’s working with a lit candle and writing with a long feather plume, inked in his own blood. Verena Stenke, his partner, is across the room: falling flat as a plank, straight down towards the floor, catching herself each time at the last moment… her nose, just inches from the hard wood. Andrea is in the mound of broken glass, now. He holds larger mirror pieces across his shoulders and chest, like wings. He walks across the glass and the sound is visceral. The glass cracks and pops under his footsteps, his red blood streaking across the translucent slivers and shards.

Adriana Disman, “Towards Anti-Disciplinarity, the (messy) hermeneutics of self-violent performance art,” Theatre Research in Canada #36.1

III • One&Two (Amsterdam)
DYAD III: One and Two

Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, NL

Two-hour performance on the occasion of FLAM V - a week of performance art, curated by Rose Akras and Dirk Jan Jager

13 May 2014

Photographs by Jaco Idema and Loreto Gilbert

VestAndPage
Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes
VestAndPage
Andrea Pagnes
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
IV • You&Me (Zagreb)
DYAD IV: You and Me

Theatre &TD, Zagreb, HR

On the occasion of Perforacije Festival, curated by Zvonimir Dobrovic

27 June 2014

 

Photographs by Darko Vaupotic

VestAndPage
VestAndPage
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Verena Stenke
Verena Stenke
V • Past&Present (Leipzig)
DYAD V: Past and Present

Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig, DE

In occasion of Blauverschiebung, presented by Galerie KUB, curated by Franziska Eissner and Christian Liefke

16 October 2014

With the text Geister ohne Heimat by Kassim Bayatly (Duhok, Iraq)

in a German translation by Verena Stenke

Photographs by Dirk Baumanns, Anika Preissler and Galerie KUB

Andrea Pagnes & Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes & Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes & Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes
Andrea Pagnes
Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes & Verena Stenke
Andrea Pagnes & Verena Stenke
VestAndPage
VI • Liquid&Solid (Sokolowsko)
DYAD VI: Liquid and Solid

Grunwald Sanatorium, Sokolowsko, PL

1-hour performance in occasion of Konteksty 5 - Festival of Ephemeral Art, curated by Malgorzata Sady

19 July 2015

Photographs by Dominik Jedliczka, Agata Mielnicka, Norbert Wawrzyniak

DYAD VII: Full and Empty

Arnolfini, Bristol, UK

2-hour performance on the occasion of IPA Performance Platform, curated by Fay Stevens

23 October 2015

 

Photographs by Jürgen Fritz and Fay Stevens

VII • Full&Empty (Bristol)
DYAD VIII: Inside and Outside

Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen, UK

2-hour performance on the occasion of This Is Performance Art (TIPA), curated by Nikki Milican

31 October 2015

 

Photographs by Kathryn Milne and Dragica Soskic

VIII • Inside&Outside (Aberdeen)

VestAndPage ended this remarkable event by putting their own bodies on the line, enduring physical attritions while a voice-over intoned the clauses of the UN’s bill of human rights. When, finally, Pagnes walked barefoot over shards of glass – it cracking like bones under his feet – it came like an act of voluntary penance in memory of those victims of carnage the world ignored in life and is quick to forget in death.

Mary Brennan, “Tragedy adds poignancy to thought-provoking art,” The Herald

IX• Open&Closed (Moscow)
DYAD IX: Open and Closed

Solyanka State Gallery, Moscow, RU

Three performances of 5 hours each on the occasion of PYRFYR - German Performance Art Season, curated by Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich and Margarita Osepyan

5 - 6 - 7 December 2015

 

Photographs by Igor Chernyshov and Margarita Osepyan

Video captured by Igor Chernyshov and edited by VestAndPage

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