In Alexander Gottfarb’s latest piece, Negotiations, 13 dancers from different generations came together and, in turns, filled the TQW Filiale in Neustiftgasse with dance for eight hours a day, for 365 days. An important aspect of Negotiations was to highlight and make visible the fact that dancing is also a form of highly skilled and physically demanding labour. His new work, Encounters, can be placed on the same line of artistic inquiry and sees Gottfarb continue his artistic (and non-artistic) questioning of the relationship between choreography, art making and the post-Fordist capitalist society. Encounters is an attempt to “work” without producing material goods or consumer services.
What results is a long, continuous dance, taking place in a workspace in Vienna over a whole weekend. The 50-hour performance was live-broadcasted in its entirety on tqw.at