stuck gives a gift of time to reflect on moving forwards, moving backwards, and walking on the spot.
Doris Uhlich

Armed with our experience as visual artists and performance artists, we wanted to venture into a completely new sphere with dance, focusing on our bodies as a tool and medium. Also, we had always been interested in letting someone else do the “directing”.
Gabriele Oßwald, Wolfgang Sautermeister

Two years ago, Gabriele Oßwald and Wolfgang Sautermeister, two older performance artists, founders and former directors of the “zeitraumexit” arts centre in Mannheim, asked Doris Uhlich if she might be interested in an artistic collaboration: “A dance production with you as choreographer is one of our dreams.” The result was stuck—a study on limitation and decay of movement, the search for “immobile dance”. The focus shifts to microscopic vibrations of an immobilised dramaturgy. Gabriele Oßwald and Wolfgang Sautermeister move around in empty space without uttering a single word, with no prolonged meetings or touches, without synchronising their gestures or steps. They seem to stand outside of time, exposing themselves in an act of melancholy retreat and in sequences of procrastination or inaction. The still acts of their existence point to an inward turning that leads to moments of unrest in the course of the performance, however, transforming the dance poetry of stasis into little explosions. This reveals dynamics inherent in motionlessness and failure to make progress.

What is dance like beyond all expectations in terms of movement, continuity and action? stuck plunges the idea of dance as action and the logic of clear-cut signs and communication into a crisis. Doris Uhlich pans out a choreographic space in which to explore experiences of loss, feelings of powerlessness, affects of melancholy.

Elements of earlier performances by Gabriele Oßwald and Wolfgang Sautermeister have been reprised in the choreography and developed further in collaboration with Doris Uhlich.