Ken | כן
She labors to emphasis existence in surrounding Chaos
A person is standing . Mouth wide open. She belongs with the people of naked sounds. Syllable-chorus from ancient times. She alarms. It isn’t the first time, nor the last one. Nearly frozen. Still here not gone. She is a mix of the before and the after. She must reconstruct. Ken. Sound over sound act over act body over body, they labor for methods of existing within unbearable realities.
Ken|כן is a full-length solo dance piece deals with a reality of chaos and the sovereignty for alternatives of existence raising from it.
Based on the Choreographer’s personal biography and ancestral history, the piece asks what ‘existing’ means, in a world of loss and destruction.
Moving through a sequence of actions and images, which seems as a collective-personal archive stored in her body, Goshen desperately tries to step beyond the threshold of shock and helplessness that occurs when living under chaos.
Corresponding with the current hyper conflicted reality, Goshen engages with events of extreme disruption, on a personal, national, international and global level.
Action by action she learns the physicality of the forces’ collision of ruins and survivability.
Once physically emitting her inner entanglements, she utilizes the remnants to go through metamorphosis, travel between times and re-live alternative realities. She welcomes chaos as a pattern of evolution rather than repetition.
Can History for once, NOT repeat itself?
As part of her transformation rituals she reveals how easily can the ancient transform into the futuristic, the humane into the demonized, and the panicked self-defender into the threatening danger.
Ken | כן is about manifesting existence. Being here, despite all.
Hinting at Goshen’s origins, the name of the piece has a meaning in Hebrew, ‘KEN| ‘כן means ‘Yes’. Goshen withdraws from the verbal to the physical. Yes, as in accepting and testing more than one way, more than one truth, more than one reality. Yes and again Yes and again Yes will result in the beauty of chaos.
Concept, choreography & performance: Smadar Goshen
Outside Eye & Dramaturgy: Maya Caroll and Maya Weinberg
Lighting design: Omer Sheizaf
Costume: Katharina Ruprecht
Music: Leonard Küßner
Video & Animation: Remmy Canedo
Production: Lisa Ticar
Production assistance: Sophie Gisbertz
Communication: Angela Milosevic
Graphics: Evelyn Fortmeier
Video documentation: Jan Hottmann and Valentin Leuschel
Special Thanks to Sabrina Schray, Amy Josh, Lior Skoury, the Produktionszentrum Tanz + Performance e.V. Stuttgart team and the Freie Tanz-und Theaterszene Stuttgart guG team.
Ken | כן premiered on the 26th January 2024 at the FITZ Theater in Stuttgart and was funded by the state capital Stuttgart, the Landesverband Freie Tanz- und Theaterschaffende Baden Württemberg e.V. with funds from the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg, the Freie Tanz- und Theaterszene Stuttgart gUG, the Péter Horváth Stiftung and was supported by the Produktionszentrum Tanz und Performance Stuttgart, Residency Support | Theater Freiburg as well as the Tanzzentrale Nürnberg. A cooperation with the FITZ Theater Stuttgart.
Pictures captured by Daniela Wolf.
