Veitstanz/Feixtanz
(Veitstanz/Feixtanz)
| Gabriele Stötzer |
| Gabriele Stötzer |
| Gabriele Stötzer |
| Gabriele Stötzer |
| Angelika Andres |
| Christian Elis |
| Dietmar Weiß |
| Frank Zieries |
| Harriet Wollert |
| Monika Gießmann |
| Ralf Gerlach |
| Siegfried Bauer |
| Silvia Buchholz |
| Silvia Richter |
| Susanne Truckenbrot |
| Ursula Mempel |
Synopsis
The tradition of St Vitus’ Dance (Veitstanz) first appeared in the Middle Ages, when groups of adults and children had danced in public until they lost consciousness. In 1988, 13 women and men revisited the power of this ancient ritual in Erfurt, East Germany. Each of them developed their own movement combined with a noise-sound collage and danced at a place of their choice. They repeated the movement to the point of ecstasy. An experimental exploration of body and space.
Trigger warning: nudity.
Rights: ex.oriente.luc Archive and director
Awards
| 2024 | Film series Social Dreaming, European Media Arts Festival Osnabrück, Germany |
| 2020 | Berlin International Film Festival, Germany |
Press comments
"Shot in East Germany, home to a socialist dictatorship, the film expresses the freedom that is inherent in all of us, should we choose to grasp it." —Gabriele Stötzer, 2020 Berlin International Film Festival catalog
“The visual artist Gabriele Stötzer did not have an official state exhibition permit, yet she was active in the artistic and political underground of East Germany in the 1980s. As a central member of a women artistic group in Erfurt, she made, among others, Super 8mm films that explored physicality as a space of feminist positioning. Veitstanz shows various people in public space in acute states of letting go and exhaustion. Can a logocentric dictatorship be shaken off without a word?” —Anna Zett, 2024 European Media Arts Festival, Osnabrück
Availability
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