Following lengthy runs in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, the UK finally has the auspicious opportunity to experience Florentina Holzinger’s fearless creation TANZ, exclusively at Battersea Arts Centre this November 1-3. Featuring an international cast of women performing spectacular, high-octane feats plus dance elements infused with martial arts and more, TANZ will take place against the dramatic backdrop of BAC’s Grand Hall. 

With an age range spanning five decades, performers have been selected from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. TANZ subverts the standards of beauty, endurance, risk and discipline expected of the female body. Inspiration is drawn from a variety of sources including motorcycle rallies, cabaret, circus and the classic 19th century romantic ballet La Sylphide.

Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger, now based in Amsterdam, has resisted generic descriptions with her provocative style of work since 2011, winning Best Director at Austria’s renowned NESTROY Theatre Awards in 2020. TANZ completes Holzinger’s trilogy about the representation and full potential of female physicality. 

Here, performers Veronica Thompson AKA Fancy Chance, Lucifire and Lydia Darling offer Run Riot their personal insights into their individual TANZ journeys.
 

Veronica Thompson: “Imagine one of your favourite outsider performance creators ends up winning the funding jackpot and it’s on euro arts steroids? I’ve ended up bowing for audiences naked, covered in fake blood after several of the shows I’ve performed and created but never on stages as big as the ones TANZ occupies and never after having played a garden instrument, whilst sitting on a motorbike suspended from the ceiling…..in pointe shoes.

In the spring of 2019 two colleagues in the circus/cabaret world sent me a casting call email for hair hangers who are willing to be nude on stage, challenge their bodies and collaborate with a group to create a live art sort of show under feminist conditions. It ticked all my boxes. I sent in my CV with videos of my work. The next thing I know, after a few email exchanges, I’m having a Skype (remember that?), conversation with the creator/director/choreographer Florentina Holzinger. Soon after, I’m in an intense 3-month development/rehearsal period being both a willing body and creative contributor/collaborator along with the other cast and designers with Flo at the helm of the ship, bound for the final vision of TANZ.

Over the course of 3 and a half years we’ve performed TANZ over 50 times, mainly in mainland Europe and we’ve also had the great fortune of getting as far as Kyoto. It’s been a wild ride through that hot, hot summer of development and rehearsals, then the triumphant premier and subsequent shows. Next came the pandemic lockdowns and covid protocol shows in the summer of 2020 (with a third capacity crowds all in masks) and now barely a protocol to be seen. The show merrily shatters the fourth wall and we suddenly found ourselves unable to cross a particular line on the stage because of social distancing. As things “opened up”, the show impacted people differently, they’d been enthused by the end before but since the lockdowns I can feel this collective sigh of relief to once again watch bodies on stage and this time, it’s 10 naked women going beyond the capacity of what most of the audience thought possible. 

TANZ is old, young, with pubic hair and not so much, a collaboration, irreverent, funny, ridiculously fun to perform, screaming, singing, dance, fighting and elevating the female body to radical heights…”. 

Lucifire: “The more I tell people offstage I'm retired, the more it feels like a lie. I don't know who I'm trying to kid, but I blame Fancy Chance. I quit the death-defying circus of motorbikes and flesh hooks twelve years ago when I discovered I was pregnant with twins, yet somehow here I am.

In 2019, my erstwhile performance buddy, Veronica, posted to the social media hive mind, asking about touring hook suspensions for some weird art thing she was doing. Retired, I offered to consult but rapidly fell in love with the project. I studied at London Contemporary Dance School in the '90s before I ran away with the circus. Here was a chance to close that circle, naked, with rats, gore, and witches. I went to Rotterdam, did a test witch-flight for the coven in a rehearsal studio, and I've been riding that broomstick ever since, across many countries and multiple lockdowns.

It's exhilarating to be playing to packed houses again. It was bizarre, looking out at a socially distanced audience, vicariously communing with us as they watched this visceral explosion on stage, bodily fluids flying, all the while unable to touch or breathe on each other.

A few suspendees share this role, to allow healing time for the body. So, I could be dancing the Dance Of Death in Kyoto one week and at home making mac and cheese for the kids the next without having to commit to all of the tour dates. 

Oh, yeah, and it's a ballet. It's hilarious and serious, political and self-aware, feminist as fuck, and the most fun I've had wearing trainers in years. I can't wait to see what the London audience will make of it. 

We've had memorable stops on the way, but none so unexpected as the reception at Nowy Teatr in Warsaw. In a country with such regressive governmental opinions and laws, the public was hungry for connection, not just the human connection of a shared artistic experience but a political kinship. I hadn't known what to expect, but we were met with standing ovations: people were crying in the audience, they were crying backstage, and I wept into my pierogi at the airport thinking about it. That trip was magical in a way I hadn't anticipated; it felt unexpectedly necessary and unforgettable”.

Lydia Darling: “I think it was Flo who initially contacted me about TANZ, but the time wasn’t right for me at that point - later on when I heard Veronica and Luci were involved, (both of whom I know and have massive respect for as performers), I was kicking myself for letting the opportunity slip through my hands. Then I got a call from Luci one day asking if I was still interested in being involved - she told me about some of the R&D they’d been doing and more about Flo’s work and the other performers, and I just thought it sounded incredible. I signed up as fast as I could and came to Vienna for the final few months of rehearsals.

I feel like Flo is allergic to putting art forms on pedestals! The show is irreverent but in a very matter of fact way. Any pomposity gets skewered really quickly - the ‘magic’ is deliberately unvarnished, fake blood gets squirted unceremoniously from a squeezy bottle, the evil witch has a joke shop plastic nose. There’s a rejection of artifice that is very direct, and I love that. It means that when the real magic happens - and the magic is within the performance, not props and costumes - it really is spell-binding.

I didn’t know much about the history of ballet before joining the show and you certainly don’t need to in order to enjoy the ride - but it’s obvious that the institution of ballet has a certain ‘sacred’ quality to it that disinvites criticism; there can be an unwillingness to look at the ugly underside, especially some of the more unpleasant aspects of its history. TANZ acknowledges that legacy and brings it out into the open. It’s confrontational whilst also being tongue-in-cheek; it doesn’t let anyone off the hook, including itself!

TANZ is at Battersea Arts Centre from Tuesday November 1 to Thursday November 3, book via https://bac.org.uk/whats-on/tanz/