reta Gauhe
Choreographer, Dancer, Producer, Researcher
Hi and welcome to this shared experience today!
The performance will take place at a table of your choice. Make sure that you have enough space to move around your table.
Please prepare your phone or laptop and connect the sound to a speaker, if possible.
Also, please select one of your favourite songs and prepare it so that you can press 'play' immediately once I ask you to during the performance. It can be any track that you feel strongly connected to. You will have to play your favourite song from a different device so that both my recording and your favourite song can be played at the same time. You could use a CD, a Vinyl or a different laptop/phone.
Also, please prepare a sheet of paper, or a notebook and something to write/draw with. Please note that this performance can be done at any time of the day.
After the performance, I invite you to share a written response a drawing or an image with us! Please feel free to use the form below or send your response to: greta.gauhe@yahoo.de. (Please note: if you do not want to share this response on our website, please indicate this in your email)
I dance since I remember. I started my professional training when I was 6 in a ballet school. I quickly realized that I don’t enjoy it strict rules and started to participate in contemporary dance workshops. I immediately fell in love with it! I continued my education in Poznan and completed my MA in contemporary dance in London Contemporary Dance School. Now I’m based in Poland, mostly Wroclaw. The thing I enjoy the most now is performing and being on stage. What I also love is teaching! I work in Academy of Music in Wrocław with vocal students on their body awareness, and in Musical Youth Academy with young artists. I also do various of workshops both in contemporary dance and ballet. I have my personal desire to change perspective of ballet, and I try to teach it with respect to my students, and keep atmosphere in class full of enjoyment!
"Wow! What a roller coaster! huh! I wanted to dance forever with all these people. I felt deeply moved and touched by this experience. I wanted to reach out to many people after this. Some people I haven't talked to for a long time and now they feel quite present in my memory, in my body. "
"Sad, happy, grateful, This audio of the table made me travel through time and all the tables that marked me and the various positions I used for each of them. Not only it transported me to the way I was feeling at the time of these tables, it made me feel the presence of the people that surrounded me at that time. Family dining table with my parents and my brother, school table with my friends, uni table with my stress, coffee table with my best friends and the comfort they brought me. It also made go through a nice dance with my mum who passed away in 2020. It was a very vivid experience, and made me very emotional as her face, her smile and voice in my memory seem to fade a bit with time passing and today everything felt very clear; even her motherly touch.. I am still feeling my tears rolling down my face as I am writing and they can’t stop. But it’s a very good feeling too as It doesn’t come out often enough. So thank you."
"I was initially sceptical, or at least cautious, as I didn’t know what to expect. But when it became clear what I was being invited to do, I settled into it. As it happens, the suggestions I was being given were in fact potent and unlocked a stream of thoughts and imaginings which led to a whole range of possible movements and gestures and actions."
"I had a series of imaginary experiences: I made gestures and positioned myself as if I was performing actions at a table. The resulting freestyle dance was more energetic than tactile, although it involved a great deal of pretend touching: of people and books and computers and bottles and knives and forks and cigarettes. For what it’s worth, the table itself has a slightly rough texture: you feel the grain of the wood."
"I imagined the human touch we experience within our family when we come together in this part of the house."