Spirit Level

2018

Presented at the exhibition Another Place at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 2018.

concept and creation: Denisa Svachova

voice: Jess Semler

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Spirit Level is a self-service performance inviting visitors to experience it as participants or observers. Active participants follow audio instructions via headphones, guiding them through simple balance exercises with interactive objects. Observers, in contrast, engage with a different sensory experience, witnessing the unfolding actions.

I explore the relationship between natural movement and choreography, and the specific spatial installations determine the scope of this research. Within their limits, I create different situations through the techniques of contemporary dance, theater, and performance and actively involve the viewer. I map the boundaries of how far the viewer is willing to be drawn into the manipulative play of normative instructions conflicting with meditative moments and how his or her tolerance is bent with the knowledge of the other participants' compliance.

Spirit Level was part of the Prag_Kassel: Hybrid Inconvenience exhibition in NoD, Prague in 2018.

concept, creation: Denisa Svachova voice: Denisa Svachova, Jess Semler, Giulio Zannol. Petra Sivcakova, Maud Courtheoux, Rebecca Bernice Humphries

curator of the exhibition: Pavel Kubesa

For Prag_Kassel: Hybrid Inconvenience exhibition I created Spirit Level in four languages—English, German, Italian, and French—each quietly over-translated into Czech. The exhibition examined the symbolic potential of the Munich Agreement (1938) through contemporary visual art.