Christina Ciupke

Christina Ciupke works as a choreographer and dancer in Berlin. She co-operated for several years with photographer Gisela Dilchert on pieces including “rissumriss”. Subsequently she worked with Myriam Gourfink and composer Kasper Toeplitz, Lars Ø Ramberg, Nik Haffner and Mart Kangro.

Together with British interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker Lucy Cash, she created the pieces “Yes. No. A bit. Not really” (a trio with composer Boris Hauf) and “from the other side” in 2010. Her most recent work, “kannst du mich umdrehen” (2011), arose from another collaboration with Nik Haffner in which they examine states of intimacy and the loss of control.

An enthusiastically willful dancer Christina Ciupke always manages to surprise. She counters the fleeting nature of dance with continuity, perseverance, radicalness, but also freshness and poetry. Having seen her for the first time in 1989, a powerful, athletic dancer, one would never have thought that it would take until 2001 for her to make a breakthrough: “rissumriss” showed just fractions of her silhouette along stark axes of light against a pitch-black background, but even more potential in her than one had previously surmised. It marked the highpoint and end of her cooperation with photographer Gisela Dilchert.

“A lot of body, a lot of work” (2011), Ciupke’s look back at the last ten years, ties this in with seven other pieces created at close quarters with dancers, visual artists and musicians. Not a retrospective, it is more a renegotiation of working methods and conceptual approaches asking the question “what” and “how”, consciously or unconsciously, do we communicate? In this way, she comes close to Myriam Gourfink’s slow motion Mikro-Moves. She is mirrored in hand camera shots from her childhood, which Lucy Clash flashes up in associative, airy patterns.

With Mart Kangro, she applies her fascination for physical exertion to the point of exhaustion and euphoria. With Nik Haffner, she ventures on to the unknown territory of perception between the spoken and the unspoken, manipulation and passivity. This exploration of language and tangible plot has produced three thrilling duets on the threshold of thought, feeling and amazement.

kannst du mich umdrehen (2011)
2 performers – 60 min
in collaboration with Nik Haffner

from the other side (2010)
solo – 55 min
in collaboration with Lucy Cash

Dealing with Life (2008)
2 performers – stage 10 x 10 m – 55 min
in collaboration with Nik Haffner

Winners versus Losers (2008)
2 performers – stage 10 x 10 m – 50 min
in collaboration with Mart Kangro

Subtitles (2006)
3 performers – stage 10 x 10 m – 50 min
in collaboration with Nik Haffner

rissumriss (2002)
solo – stage 11 x 11 m – 55 min
in collaboration with Gisela Dilchert