Isabelle Schad

In Kafka’s unfinished story »Der Bau« he describes a den that is formed out of the body itself and still belongs to it, carrying with it his forms, traces, scents, hopes and doubts. It serves as the title metaphor and the starting point for further exploration of the relationship between body and space, which Isabelle Schad and French artist and philosopher Laurent Goldring began in the 2008 series UNTURTLED. In the solo dance piece DER BAU, Isabelle Schad uses huge lengths of material to constantly create new spatial shapes, which can be interpreted as organs, as extensions of the body. Together the last inner and first outer layer of the body become the material for a danced, living sculpture, that reacts in a surprisingly lifelike way, simultaneously as a body part, as a sheath and as a partner. The dancer and choreographer turn clever body concepts into highly sensitive and intense live performances.