Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

Archive

 

Volume 15 Number 2, August 2014

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Performance Review

 

Aurelia Baumgartner

 

Human without Cortex -- Attempts

 

World Congress, International Federation for Theatre Research,

Warwick, UK,

31 July 2014

 

Reviewed by

 

Peter Zazzali

University of Kansas

 

I had the good fortune of sharing in Aurelia Baumgartner's work at the International Federation for Theatre Research's 2014 World Congress in Warwick, UK.  Ms. Baumgartner is an extraordinarily gifted dancer and thinker as clearly demonstrated in her open-mic performance and academic presentation.  Jointly entitled, "Human Without Cortex-Attempts," Baumgartner regaled her appreciative audience with a dance piece in the morning, before following it up with an academic paper during the afternoon. The former was a welcome pastiche of dance styles that included tango, tap, modern, and ballet towards rendering an electrifying language of movement that was supported by images presented on a screen upstage and the underscoring of a live trombonist.  Baumgartner's aesthetic was to capture the essence of the unconscious in dance through a free interplay of sounds, movement, and the imagination.  During the afternoon session, she then unpacked her engaging performance as part of a paper that led to a fruitful dialogue with her colleagues in the IFTR Performance and Consciousness Working Group.  All told, Baumgartner gave us a remarkable performance on both intellectual and performative planes. 

 

Click here for Aurelia Baumgartner's website