Motus Mori LECTIO

Since 2019, choreographer Katja Heitmann has been collecting and preserving ‘human movement’ in the Motus Mori archive. During SPRING, she presented the impressive MUSEUM (Fotodok 2021) and the moving RELIQUIEM (2023). The impossibility of this archive – preserving movement – reflects human vulnerability, hubris, and incapacity. Katja’s artistic act is one of compassion: with this archive, she aims to foster ‘kinetic empathy’.

This is a lifelong project. Katja seeks to create a ‘monument’ of movement that makes space for every body. In this lecture-performance, you will experience firsthand how this process works. Together with dancers and ‘movement experts’ who have donated their movements to the archive, she explores different ways of transferring movement. What are ‘invisible bodies’? How do you preserve and transmit movement, from body to body or across generations? Can we write a new history together, where every physicality is equally important?

In this intimate, lecture-performance, Katja reflects on the unique people she has met over the past years and looks ahead to the works she will create. As a choreographic sculptor, she works live with ‘intimate material’ alongside her dancer-archivists. You will meet different people from the archive who will help you experience what it’s like to move as someone else. You will learn how to share your own movement and become a movement archivist yourself. Together, we will contribute to the MONUMENT for human movement.

The SPRING program also features PERPETUUM, an immersive and moving video installation that gives you a deeper look into the Motus Mori archive. In this new artwork, you will meet the ‘movement donors’ and experience their stories and personal movements on a monumental scale. The installation will create a dialogue with the lecture-performance, allowing you to further explore Katja Heitmann’s ongoing exploration of human movement.

This lecture performance goes along with Katja’s installation Motus Mori PERPETUUM, which is displayed in the City Theatre from May 22-25. You can find more information about the work here.