gossips: the first trial

Workshop & Work-in-progress by Allison Brown & Gal Fefferman

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Loosely based on Silvia Federici’s term “gossiping”, we will celebrate and question the power of intergenerational mentoring relationships between women*: What practical knowledge can only be passed on through direct exchange and contact because it has never been written down – or because it relates to us individually? And vice versa: What can role models learn from those who emulate them? And where does such a relationship, which is always characterized by a power relationship, reach its limits?

The dancer and performer Gal Fefferman and her former dance teacher, the dancer Allison Brown, have joined forces as gossips. In a cross-generational dance dialog based on biographical and choreographic material, the two explore their relationship, reflect on their journey together so far and capture it in a forward-looking snapshot of dance and narrative in all its contradictions.

gossips

Choreographer Gal Fefferman, dramaturge Julia Blando and production manager Anno Bolender have been working as a collective in Frankfurt’s independent scene under the name gossips since 2021. They develop interdisciplinary processes that deal with the experiences of women*, especially those who appear on stage in their performances. Their video project “HUNGRY” (2022) can be viewed in full on the website www.gossips-collective.com. “Superheroes gehen nicht auf’s Klo” is the collective’s last stage work, which premiered in May 2023 at studioNAXOS in Frankfurt, and is currently being presented in schools in rural areas in Hesse as part of FLUX’s guest performance program. gossips supplements its team with associated artists on a project-by-project basis. An important part of our plays is always “gossiping with…”, coming together after a play, after a rehearsal, as like-minded people, as accomplices: We cook for our collaborators and our audience and invite (as an essential part of our understanding of theater) to a feminist exchange.

Gal Fefferman – concept/choreography/dance (www.galfefferman.com)

Julia Blando – concept/dramaturgy/text (www.juliahagendramat.org)

Anno Bolender – concept/production management (https://diskursiveformation.jimdofree.com/)

With

Allison Brown – choreography/dance

Maylin Habig – Costumes

Graphics: @tembelone

Supported by the Kulturamt Frankfurt am Main

Allison Brown

Allison Brown, born in Morocco, has been active in dance for over 30 years. She is a teacher, rehearsal director, and choreographer, currently based in Frankfurt am Main. She studied ballet at the School of American Ballet (1982-1986), where she was subsequently invited to join the New York City Ballet (NYCB) (1986-1991). During her time at NYCB, she danced a wide range of pieces by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, Laura Dean, and Eliot Feld, among others. Allison pursued her interest in modern and contemporary dance by joining Twyla Tharp and Dancers (1991-1993), Amanda Miller’s Pretty Ugly Dance Company, and Saburo Teshigawara’s Karas Company (1994-1996). After eight years of repeated auditions and practicing endurance and humility, William Forsythe welcomed Allison to Ballet Frankfurt (1996-2004).

Since 2000, Allison has been teaching and leading workshops. On the invitation of William Forsythe, she staged his works such as Duet and Workwithinwork for various dance companies worldwide. From 2011 to 2019, she was a lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt (HfMDK), and was appointed Professor of Ballet and Contemporary Dance at the Center for Contemporary Dance (ZZT) at the HfMT in Cologne (2019-2023).

Allison Brown has been working as a choreographer since 1998. Her works include pieces for Pretty Ugly/Ballet Freiburg, the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), the Transitions Dance Company Laban (London), the Gärtnerplatztheater (Munich), as well as for HfMDK (Frankfurt) and ZZT and HfMT (Cologne). She is committed to promoting the rights and conditions of dancers.

Gal Fefferman

Gal Fefferman, born in Israel, studied Contemporary Dance at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt. Since 2017, she has been working as a choreographer, collaborating with musical director Nicolai Bernstein and the Kammerphilharmonie Frankfurt. Their joint project on Gershwin’s An American in Paris premiered in 2021 at the Alte Oper stage. In 2022, she developed the documentary dance film project HUNGRY with her collective GOSSIPS at studioNAXOS, and in 2023, the performance Superheroes gehen nicht aufs Klo.

As a dancer and performer, Gal Fefferman regularly works with the Frankfurt company Dorfproduct and in various opera productions, including with Claus Guth (recently for Samson at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence). At the Frankfurt Opera, she choreographed Tchaikovsky’s Die Zauberin and performed as a dancer in Elektra, as well as in numerous productions such as Der Rosenkavalier, Les Troyens, and Anna Toll. She also performed in Die lustige Witwe, Dialogue des Carmélites, and as Eine junge Frau in Aus einem Totenhaus. In the past season, she created the choreography for Der Traumgörge directed by Tilmann Köhler, and worked as choreographic assistant on the new staging of Le nozze di Figaro and In seinem Garten liebt Don Perlimplín Belisa directed by Dorothea Kirschbaum.

Photo Credit: Hagar Bader

Performances

5.6.25, 19 o'clock

DA Darmstadt Ballettsaal