Blurring the lines of choreography and storytelling THE GROWING EDGE explores the theatrical and staged, fictional and dreamlike in autobiography, reflecting on the depiction of lived queer and trans experience as personal and political narrative. Horse and human become multifaceted carriers of meaning, confidants that mirror one another and expire internal states in forging a path to resilience and growth. Embedded in an eerie soundtrack by music producer rRoxymore, THE GROWING EDGE develops a tender and emphatic dialogue and dance between past and present memories, timelines and experiences.

Ian Kaler is supported by the CITY OF VIENNA / Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, the REPUBLIC OF AUSTRIA / Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport and the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK – STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance

GRAFTING SELF is a dreamlike coming-of-age story portraying a transmale protagonist who takes his younger self KID on a journey through the forest in the summer. Interwoven in different timelines, the encounters with a horse and a motocross bike suggest a literal and metaphorical arrival of the protagonist* as a gesture to befriend one’s inner child.

Supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK – STEPPING OUT – funded by the
Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the
initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance. Ian Kaler is supported by the  City of Vienna | Municipal Department Cultural Affairs.

Special Thanks to Moto X Schmiede – Patrick Spingat, Lars Niemuth,
Kerstin Große und Reiterhof Helenau

SENTIENT BEINGS refers to the sensory and emotional perception in existence and of living beings, addressing moments of being together and being alone. The video-piece develops a layered and subtle dramatic suspense embedded in an eerie and absorptive soundtrack by music producer rRoxymore. Blurring the lines of choreography and non-verbal storytelling SENTIENT BEINGS circles around the fall as in/voluntary gesture in the surrender to co-exist.

Special thanks to Uferstudios and Hof Cassiopeia

Ian Kaler is supported by the Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs, Vienna and the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK – STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance.

The film is based on Kalers solo performance “POD Hyphen” for which he invited artistic companions Jen Rosenblit (Text and direction PART TWO) and Stephane “Peeps” Moun (Choreography PART THREE) to choreograph for him and with him.

The opening video prologue with images of Ian Kaler and a falcon in the woods (Cinematography by Diara Sow) is inspired by the mythological figure of the harpy.

POINTS OF DEPARTURE creates a poetic juxtaposition (Editing Dafne Narvaez Berlfein) of the various footages and narrative threads and is accompanied by a mesmerizing electronic soundtrack by music producer rRoxymore alias Hermione Frank.

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ME BECOMING MYSELF (unfinished)  examines voicing and voice work as a physical/somatic (learning) process. The shots frame the upper bodies of the two performers as portrait shots. Analogous to the o.T. series of pieces , in which Ian Kaler examines a spectrum of facing away from and towards the audience on stage, in Me becoming myself (unfinished) attention is drawn to the back as a permeable body surface, that of the camera is facing, directed. The video conveys the process of testing, appropriating and embodying as a fragile yet humorous and empowering balancing act.

SHIFTING THE BURDEN is a collaboration between the video artist Anne Quirynen and the choreographer Ian Kaler. The joint project originates from a reserach on perception of movement from one artistic language to another and from one work to another. One sees a figure inscribing a figure. The installation shifts continuously between different media: painting, video art and choreography. The body – projected on a black surface – is caught in a frame. It seems to be deprived of physicality and is accompanied by the sound of someone trying to draw and follow the movement, knowing one can only fail to see and hear motion.

Anne Quirynen was born in 1960 in Sint-Niklaas (Belgium). She studied art history in Leuven and video art at the Hogeschool Sint-Lukas in Brussels. Since 1993 she has been working freelance together with William Forsythe and Wim Vandekeybus among others. In 1994 she belonged to the founders of the independent production company for digital art “De Filmfabriek.” A grant from the Nipkow Program led her in 1999 to Berlin. Today she lives and works in Berlin. Since 2004 assistant professor for Film, Video and New Media at the Chicago Art Institute, since 2007 professor for moving image at the European Media Studies, a cooperation between the University of Potsdam and the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. Her films and video installations have been shown at international festivals, such as Berliner Festspiele, the Forum of the Berlinale “Forum Expanded”, the International Festival of New Film Split, Rotterdam Filmfestival, European Media Art Festival Osnabru¨ck, World Wide Video Festival Den Haag and Art & Video in Europe Kopenhagen as well as in art centers like the Centre Pompidou Paris, MoMA in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Nippon Cultural Centre in Tokyo.