Benze C. Werner mit Ley Ghafouri und Guests: LP

In the organizer's words:

Two panting dogs in the middle of the dance floor, drooling threads in the light. LP is a pack experience, a remix of lesbian history, personal longings and autotune. The starting point are materials from the Lesbian Herstory Archives (NYC), love letters, flyers, sound recordings and essays, with which the artistic team around Benze C. Werner enter into a dialog through their own texts, songs and movement. Personal stories and collective memories merge into a polyphonic collage. Three tongue-like textile installations hang from the ceiling - the central motif of the piece is the mouth. As a gateway to the foreign body, it forms a field of tension between lust and disgust, desire and revulsion. Here the boundaries between bodies become blurred, the spit of others becomes part of me. The possibility of having a say, of having a voice, is also linked to the mouth that speaks, remains silent or sings. LP transforms discourse into catchy tunes. Song and dance are interwoven to open up different emotional approaches in a movement between history and longing. LP is a performance in which visitors can satisfy their sensory needs. Singing along, laughing and immersing yourself are expressly encouraged.

Benze C. Werner is a choreographer and dancer based in Cologne. At the interface of dance, sound and live performance, dey explores the affective and sensual potential of the interplay between music and movement. The focus is on immersive, physically tangible situations that enable a resonance between audience and performers.

Benze's artistic practice combines her background in contemporary dance and ballet with queer-feminist and anti-fascist perspectives. The graduation piece Neon Serenade, created as part of her studies at the ZZT in Cologne, marks the beginning of an ongoing artistic research into the aesthetics and politics surrounding line dancing, so-called country culture and the cowboy image. The piece was invited to Now&Next at tanzhaus nrw in 2024. LP, developed in close collaboration with musician and producer Ley Ghafouri, is the third joint work and Benze C. Werner's first co-production with tanzhaus nrw as a choreographer.

Relaxed Performance. In English.
Duration: approx. 1.5 hours

[1] We sing an ode to the rivers of spit you lost in the mouths of your lovers.

[2] Each of these stories feels strangely like my own.