Tumult at Tanz

New Zealand-based choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and his troupe MAU continue their worldwide tour performing Tempest: Without a Body at Berlin’s Internationales Tanzfest on August 28-29. In an interview with English-language magazine ExBerliner, Samoan-born Ponifasio talks to Katherine Koster about the contemporary political themes in the work and the inspiration for Tempest. Ponifasio says the image of Paul Klee’s “Angel of History” is the starting point for the performance. “The work starts on the helplessness of this angel … And I think: I don’t want to be defined by the repetition of disasters in history,” Ponifasio says. “The piece begins with the idea of suspension of rights. We have created for ourselves a kind of spectator society where we watch but are not part of it. So I started to perform it: the consequences of our inaction.” MAU was founded 15 years ago and named after the Samoan independence movement.