For some years now, Martin Nachbar has convincingly proved that so-called “concept dance” can not only be intelligent, but also very funny. Beneath an apparently harmless and almost clown-like surface, his pieces subversively play with different levels of interpretation and the friction between language and movement. Martin Nachbar is always a bit ambiguous. His work always features several parallel or overlapping levels. Paradoxically, the extreme understatement of his presentation lends his work a transparent quality that allows them to be viewed from several different perspectives. Nachbar’s work often deals with "documentary moments".
Taking movement and language material out of context and reprocessing it through his body, he not only explores common concepts of dance and representation, but also questions the role of the performer and the tension that lies between idea and performance. In his investigation of dance history in “Urheben Aufheben”, Nachbar approaches Dore Hoyer’s expressionist movement language, which is alien to him, not by imitating her dance, but by examining processes of authorship and appropriation. Martin Nachbar’s artistic auto-experimentation is not result-oriented: It’s doesn’t matter where he’s going, but how he gets there.
Taking movement and language material out of context and reprocessing it through his body, he not only explores common concepts of dance and representation, but also questions the role of the performer and the tension that lies between idea and performance. In his investigation of dance history in “Urheben Aufheben”, Nachbar approaches Dore Hoyer’s expressionist movement language, which is alien to him, not by imitating her dance, but by examining processes of authorship and appropriation. Martin Nachbar’s artistic auto-experimentation is not result-oriented: It’s doesn’t matter where he’s going, but how he gets there.
