​"SOLSTICE CYCLES" 
A site-specific, improvisational, sound & movement art project between Karola Luettringhaus and Carl Kruger & SLOW EAR ENSEMBLE: offering performances and opportunities for participation
Fall Equinox
(alban elved)
9/23/2023

Winter Solstice
(alban arthan) 2023
details tbd
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​Spring Equinox
​(alban eiler)  2024



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PARTICIPANT BIOS
KAROLA LUETTRINGHAUS/ALBANELVED DANCE CO. 
I was born and grew up in Berlin, Germany. I received a BFA in Choreography and Modern Dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and an MA in Scenic Design and Scenography from the Technische Universität Berlin. I completed an MA in Performance Studies at UC Davis where I am currently a PhD Candidate in the Performance Studies Program, writing my dissertation on "Tracing Gesture: Emergence and Signification in the Choreographic Process". I currently split my time between Germany, North Carolina, and Mexico. ​


​SLOW EAR ENSEMBLE
Wilmington, NC's Slow Ear Ensemble is an improvisational group of local experimental musicians comprised of Carl Kruger (https://www.discogs.com/artist/225915-Carl-Kruger), Phil Zampino (http://www.squidco.com), Sean Hart (https://youtu.be/t-PpryYE2EE), Grant Stewart (https://soundcloud.com/subterrene/) and Allison Parker (https://www.youtube.com@allison5 ).
An active part of Alban Elved Dance Company's the SARUS Festival and our common project "Solstice Cycles" in Wilmington since 2015, our visuals accompanied performances and reflect their name as their drone based soundscapes evolve, subtly pulse and expand using live instrumentation, modular synthesizers, and manipulated sample sources. Their appearances yield immersive aural experiences to the patient and sound curious.
PAST "SOLSTICE CYCLES"
>>> April 22nd, 2023: EARTH DAY PERFORMANCE @ Cameron Art Museum
SOLSTICE CYCLES: 
Traces of the Enmeshment - The River Home

an
EARTH DAY Performance at CAMERON ART MUSEUM
  • April 22nd, 2023
  • 2-3:30pm
  • audience discussion 3:30-4pm
  • 3201 S 17th St, Wilmington, NC 28412, Reception Hall, tel 910-395 5999
  • Admission: free with museum admission (regular adults $12, children free, students $10, see website for further discounts, details, etc. No-one is turned away for economic reasons: Please contact us if you need a reduced price of free admission due to financial hardship). Reservations are not needed.
  • Please consider a separate donation for the performers: $5-$25 suggested
  • Audiences can come and go any time, an usher will answer questions and give assistance throughout the entire duration of the event
  • Open to all ages, and abilities. Family friendly event. Children need to be accompanied by an adult.
  • This event is part of a number of other events at the museum for Earth Day on April 22, 2023: come and spend the day at CAM, listen to music, enjoy good food and another performance outdoors on museum grounds
  • press contact: [email protected]
  • ​​Special Thanks go to September Kruger and Grant Stuart.
  • blue image above is created by Carl Kruger

THOUGHTS attending and participating:
Anytime we attend a performance we are also actively shaping it, through our attentiveness, state of mind, bodily posture, energy, emotional state, etc... An audience member is a source of action for the performer, and of course also for the other audience members. A performance is a reciprocal event, and every person and every element in the space plays its role toward the shaping of the experience and the potential meanings that emerge, or are let go of, for each individual during that time. A performance is a meditation on a common experience.
We, the Slow Ear Ensemble and Karola Luettringhaus, are offering a topic and a concept from which we are beginning this experience: As part of Earth Day, we are creating a performative experience entitled “Traces of the Enmeshment: The River Home”. With this work we wish to ignite thought around human beings' positionings in relationship to every thing that makes up this planet and life on it. Since this performance is taking place within a clear context, Earth Day, the performers are asking each person that enters the space to contemplate their personal relationship to the earth, “where does the I end and the earth begin?”.

We invite you to be open to observations, interpretations or perhaps also to let go of meaning altogether. Each of us comes from unique backgrounds and lives lived and each of our journeys might be very different during the 90 minutes we spend together in common artistic meditation, during the performance. Whatever comes up for you is something that belongs to the topic and the many issues we face surrounding our relationship to/with/as the earth. Each performer has a unique starting point, or a philosophy, or an opinion from which to start their performance. The performance for the performer, as well as for you the audience member, is an investigation, an improvisation, an inquiry into what we are manifesting.

You are invited to listen to our journey and you will inevitably be affected by what each and everyone of us in the space is doing.

You are invited to interact with us, or with one another, if you see the need for this: within the context of the topic and the moment we are creating together; your interaction should be kind, and mindful of the context we are in. We look forward to experiencing what each person contributes.

In case this is all very new to you and you don't know how to act after reading this long text: here are some possibilities and starting points:
  • You can choose a place in the space to linger and sense all that is going on, listening, watching or closing your eyes, you can move around to different locations and remain there for a while or the entire time.
  • You can pick up a pencil and write down on a piece of paper something you wish to express to the people in the room. You can give the paper to the dancer, or simply place it in the performance space (lit up space in the middle of the room). You can be creative with your writing and leave messages in the room in other ways as well: but always written on paper,please!. It is important to note that any writing on Cameron Art Museum property, walls, chairs, floors or other objects would greatly get us in trouble and likely cost you and us a lot of money. Please refrain from that and make sure writing only happens on the paper that is provided or belong to you personally. 
  • You can move around the space, you can call it dancing if you want, in response to the performance or in interaction with the dancer.
  • You can speak into a microphone to contribute to the soundscapes. The dancer will have a microphone or place it somewhere accessible to audiences. Pick it up and speak. Contribute, don't dominate. Thank you. ​ ​
PERFORMANCE CONCEPT DESCRIPTION:

For Earth Day we would like to bring attention to the ways in which we relate to our bodies. How our bodies move and perceive.

Our planet is commonly viewed as being separate from us. We go "into nature". We are "on earth". We lose connection "to nature". We invest in saving "our world". However, there are other ways of thinking about positioning ourselves. Indigenous thinkers such as Vanessa Watts and spiritual thinkers such as Sadhguru express that we "are" nature. We are ultimately and unchangeably interconnected with what we call "the environment". That which we exhale the trees inhale, and that which the trees exhale, we in turn inhale. Cycles of interdependence. The trees are the external parts of our lungs and vice versa. We are enmeshed. If it is on earth, it is somehow part of us, no matter what it looks like. The awareness of enmeshment begins within us. We are biomes, our gut alone, for example, is made up of several pounds of microbes that in part constitute our immune system.

Movement, sound, and image will begin from this concept of enmeshment. Our billions of living cells are micro analogous reflections of the macro natural world that ordered them over the millennia. This optionally participatory event is part audio, visual, and movement performance, part living spectacle encapsulating the biomes we live in, and that live in us. The audio component is mixed live with sounds of the space, and the people within it. They are sounds from the enmeshment: bodily physicality, the overhead lights, the curtains, the doors, floors, intestinal gurgles, water, voices, blood flow, breath, radio signals, heartbeat, moving skin, Earth tones, electrical currents, traffic, hair; all these meet the creativity of the musicians and their instruments: acoustic and electronic. The performers explore this enmeshment with everything and everyone non-human. We are part of the body of the Earth.
"SOLSTICE CYCLES" - is an experimental, collaborative Improv Project between Karola Luettringhaus with Alban Elved Dance Company and Carl Kruger with the Slow Ear Ensemble.
The focus of the project is the contemplation and celebration of earthly phenomena, cycles and seasons.
​
PERFORMERS
  • Members of Alban Elved Dance Company and Slow Ear Ensemble (in alphabetical order): Ryan O'Doud, Sean Hart, Carl Kruger, Karola Luettringhaus, Allison Parker, Phil Zampino.
  • Technical support: Grant Stewart
  • Special Thanks go to September Kruger and CAM
ARTIST STATEMENTS FOR THIS EARTH DAY PROJECT
"For Earth Day: My starting point for this performance is a trust in the animacy and intelligence of all matter while regarding anthropocentrism as an unrealistic and problematic model for a healthy earth, rather a more interconnected relationship and enmeshment seems to be at play." - Karola Luettringhaus
Carl
September
Sean
etc..., if you want...

























































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MORE ABOUT "SOLSTICE CYCLES"
WINTER SOLSTICE (alban arthan) 2022
​NEW FILM RELEASE 12/21/2022

Celebrating the Winter Solstice 2022 Carl Kruger and Karola Luettringhaus have created a film "REFLECTIONSNOITCELFER".
Watch it HERE ! or below:
ABOUT SOLSTICE CYCLES:

"SOLSTICE CYCLES" - is an experimental, collaborative Improv Project between Alban Elved Dance Company, Carl Kruger and the Slow Ear Ensemble.

The focus of the project is the contemplation and celebration of the changing of seasons.
Live events are based on an open invitation for audiences to move and dance with us during the performance. Witnessing is just as welcome, there is no pressure to participate. The events are all-inclusive. All are welcome! Audiences can come and go at any point in time.

Alban Elved is the Celtic name for the fall equinox. It is the clarity of this time, with its fresh air and melancholic vibrancy that inspires Karola's work.

Free - $5 suggested donation.
 
more info: contact: [email protected]
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"OSCILLATING CADENCE": celebration of the fall equinox 2022 @ Greenfield Lake
"FORWARD FLUIDITY": celebrating the spring equinox 2017 @ Cameron Art Museum (see photo below)
"FRAGMENTAL ORGANICS": celebrating the winter solstice 2016 @ the Hannah Block Community Arts Center

Photo from Solstice Cycles Spring Equinox 2017 at Cameron Art Museum. Photo by Slow Ear Ensemble. Photo by Slow Ear Ensemble. Performers in Image: Karola Luettringhaus and Carl Kruger. Additional performers: Lena Rose Magee, Breanne Horne, 5 Slow Ear Ensemble members.