Antonia Baehr is beginning with a new series of solos about interspecies relations, critiquing anthropocentrism and the straightness of nature/culture binarism. She will work with threesomes of afï¬nity, conjoining an animal with a friend or parent and with herself as the host and solo-interpreter, as she will also in My Dog is My Piano, presented the night before in the festival.
At this point in time, we meet Antonia Baehr during the first stage of her project, ABeCedarium Bestiarium, a performed “ABC of friendship” in animal and temporal drag. Here she invites artist friends to uncover an affinity that they have with one extinct animal of their choice. Each animal stands for one letter of the ABC. She commissions each of these artists to write a short solo performance score, related to the animal that they have selected, which she can perform on stage alone. In the frame of the Domaine residence in Montpellier Antonia Baehr will perform seven scores, „D is for Dodo“ by Dodo Heidenreich , „Y is Yangsee River Dolphin“ by Frédéric Bigot, „G is for Guam flying fox“ by Christian Kesten, „S is for Steller’s sea cow“ by Sabine Ercklentz, „F is for Forest Tarpan“ by Isabell Spengler, „M is for Martelli’s cat“ by Valérie Castan and „N is for Northern Bubal Hartebeest“ by Andrea Neumann.
Overall concept, production and performance: Antonia Baehr
With compositions by: Fred Bigot (electronicat), Pauline Boudry, Valérie Castan, Manuel Coursin, Lucile Desamory, Vinciane Despret, Sabine Ercklentz, Dodo Heidenreich, Christian Kesten, Keren Ida Nathan (Ida Wilde), Andrea Neumann, Stefan Pente, Isabell Spengler, Steffi Weismann, William Wheeler, a. o.
Administration: Alexandra Wellensiek
Supported by ausland. Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin.
Thank you to: Angela Anderson, Lindy Annis, Bettina von Arnim, ausland, Ulrich Baehr, Valérie Castan, Walton Ford, Elisabeth Freeman, Ulrike Melzwig, Wolfgang Müller, Conrad Noack, François Noudelman, Alain Roux, Pauline Schroeder-Baehr, Gertrude Stein, Ida Wilde (Keren Ida Nathan)