lee meir
fourteen functional failures
fourteen functional failures
a solo series (2016-2017)
The solo series fourteen functional failures put’s into practice questions regarding rhythm, time, action and failure, through intensive physical and vocal investigations. Each solo (functional failure) serves as an independent performance unit, as well as a study towards the next functional failure, by developing methods of work which are applied on the interchangeability between movement, sound, and language.
CONCEPT & CHOREOGRAPHY: Lee Méir
COLLABORATORS: André Lewski, Julia Rodriguez, Gretchen Blegen
SUPPORTED BY LIFE LONG BURNING.
Presentations:
failure n#3,n#6, n#12 - Intimadance festival, Tel-Aviv (June 2017)
failure n#3, n#6 - Überstürztes Denken, Roter Salon, Volksbühne (May 2017)
failure n#2 - eXplore Dance Festival, Bucharest (October 2016)
failure n#9, n#11, n#13 - Vulva Club, ausland, Berlin
failure n#7 - Tanzfabrik, Berlin (June 2016)
failure n#7 - Die lust am Text, Tanzquartier Wien (June 2016)
failure n#4, n#5 -Tanzparty, Uferstudios (August 2016)
failure n#4, n#5 - Nah Dran extended, ada Studio, Berlin (April 2016)
This project, is in it’s nature fragmented: Its title, fourteen functional failures, appeared in a poem I wrote in 2016. I had then decided that this will determine the project’s working frame. Throughout the various functional failures I continuously look for a time&place in which failure&success become non-linear, non-binary terms. Rather than thinking of time as a linear process, I think about time as the action of filling spaces. Sound, language and movement are used as tools to investigate how failure/success behave when they are denied linearity.
functional failure n#12, n#3 & n#6 at Intimadance festival, Tel-Aviv, 28-30.6.2017.
To stretch one short moment of intensity and high frequency beyond it's limit.
functional failure n#3 & n#6 at Überstürztes Denken, Lecture series by the Philosopher Marcus Steinweg at Roter Salon, Volksbühne. 9.5.17
functional failure n#9, n#11, n#13, presented at Vulva Club, by Female Trouble Collective, at ausland Berlin, on the 27.5.16.
The intensity of an action in a condensed time frame which may be too small to contain it’s content.
functional failure n#2, was created and presented at eXplore festival in Bucharest, on the 21.10.16.
Thinking about rhythm as a construction of space.
Performance presented within the project "Life Long Burning Choreographic Residencies and Production 2016", as result of a Wild Card Residency offered by 4 Culture Association, in partnership with Uferstudios Berlin.
functional failure n#7 was presented in the frame of Die Lust am Text,with Marcus Steinweg, Lee Méir and Ann Cotton, Tanzquartier Wien, on the 3.6.16, and at Tanzfabrik, Berlin, on the 10-11.6.16
The intensity of gesture and rhythm in relation to linguistic content.
People write about fourteen functional failures:
“ fourteen functional failures is an audacious project that aims at the continuos process of art making that isn’t interrupted by nor dependent on external invitation or institutional support. By consistently producing failures, Lee Méir is keeping true loyalty to her artistic desires and genuine interests. Lee is employing the rare quality of persistence both in the How and in the What: She is being persistent in setting the conditions of her work; non stop production over the course of many months presented in diverse over-and-underground events. She is also persisting in the work itself; focusing, distilling and perfecting “one thing” (failure n#9) at a time. In this manner, fourteen functional failures are a profound and fearless endeavor that stands out in the landscape of mostly trivial and pointless artworks. “
(Roni Katz, Choreographer and Collaborator)
“ fourteen function failures has something very liberating and honest about its approach due to its content – failure, – and due to its form – fourteen indeed seems like an ambiguous number at first, and maybe it is, but one has to wonder. There is a raw casualness about the work and its various manifestations that allows each performance to be what it needs to be without over-emphasizing the importance of something being presented. Each Failure rather accepts that some things are temporary and enjoys the process of making and composing and then, in turn, sharing and shaping that process with an audience. This long-term series manages to skip through the hoops of the conditions for performance (or lack there of) and allows the research to continue until it feels like it should come to a halt. The form allows for failure to function and become somehow involved and inviting. It is executed with a very conscious approach to making work and taking part in the dance economy. In this sense, fourteen functional failures has and continues to develop new perspectives and curiosities about approach to artistic practices, content and translation, and the extent of these mediums themselves while avoiding a necessity to define exactly what it is and where it is going.“
(Gretchen Sigrid Blegen, Sound Artist and Member of the Collective at ausland, Berlin)
failure n#4, n#5 were presented at Nah Dran, ada Studio, in Berlin, on the 2-3.4.16 and at the Tanz Party, at Uferstudios,on the 1.8.16
f#4 & f#5 explore sound as body actions as sound actions. While f#4 looks for where sound begins, f#5 attempts to activate a multiplicity of rhythms that coexist simultaneously.
© Lee Meir 2023. all rights reserved.
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