FOR IDA
A SELF_PORTRAIT is a love video-letter to Ida, shot on videophone (Skype) using a laptop’s internal camera. In the image, we see a quadruplicated face belonging to some kind of man. Through the subtle differences between the micro-choreographic performances of each of these four moving passport photos, diverse surfaces for identification and projection develop. Over the course of their slow and precise transformations, different (drag) identities pass through the four faces. As a “performance for the camera”, the video’s articulation unfolds by sole means of choreographic language, as a solitaire without words, without added time effects or manipulation, and without cuts. For Ida is the filmic-choreographic inverse of the piece For Faces, which is performed live by four “interpreters”. The two works behave as side one and two of the same record: one shouldn’t/can’t see them together. While the “for” in Four Faces stands for the material space of the spectators and the interpretive work of the performers, the “for” in For Ida signifies a space of thought, a space inhabited by a dedication.
„Exact resemblance to exact resemblance the exact resemblance as exact resemblance, exactly as resembling, exactly resembling, exactly in resemblance exactly and resemblance. For this is so. Because. (…)“
– Gertrude Stein, from “If I Told Him, A Complete Portrait of Picasso”
FOR IDA
HD CAM SR Video, NTSC, Color, Stereo Sound, 20’59”, 16:9
Post Production: Mikko Gaestel
Starring: Henry Wilde
Thank You: Famille Masbou, Marei & Hannes Wendt, Ulrich Baehr, Bettina von Arnim, Isabell Spengler, Daniel Adams, Nanna Heidenreich, Lucile Desamory, Sabine Ercklentz, Andrea Neumann, Arantxa Martinez, William Wheeler, Nicholas Bussmann, Anna Clementi & die Maulwerker, Maria Falconetti & Carl Theodor Dreyer, Gertrude Stein, and Ida Wilde
Antonia Baehr, mas de Rau, 2009-2011
December 3 & 4 2011, Cinedans Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands
December 21 2011, Living Room Festival, Berlin, Germany
April 12-15 2012, What Matters Festival, Siobhan Davies Studios, London, UK
May 5 & 6 2012, presented by fluctuation images, General Public, Berlin, Germany
January 30 2013, festival 30″30’ Les Rencontres de la Forme Courte, Pessac, France
Between Solitaire and a Basketball Game, Tom Engels
Dramaturgical Strategies in the Work of Antonia Baehr
Interview between Tom Engels and Antonia Baehr on her film „For Ida“ and her choreographic piece „For Faces“, published in Bastard or Playmate? Adapting Theatre, Mutating Media and Contemporary Performing Arts.
Robrecht Vanderbeeken, Christel Stalpaert, David Depestel, Boris Debackere (eds.)
Bastard or Playmate? Adapting Theatre, Mutating Media and Contemporary Performing Arts
Amsterdam University Press, 2012
ISBN 978 90 8964 258 5
For Ida, A Self-Portrait
„For Ida is a choreographic self-portrait shot with the home technology of the videophone (Skype) and a laptop&rsquo,s internal camera. As a &ldquo,performance for the camera&rdquo,, the film&rsquo,s articulation unfolds by sole means of choreographic language, as a game of solitaire without words, without added time effects or manipulation&mdash,which means there aren&rsquo,t any cuts either.“