Anna Juniewicz

Interviews

Performances and screendance

Roe

Roe is a short experimental dance video. It was shot for Tokyo Space Dance Exhibition online 2022 and had an online premiere on 1 October 2022. Like my first screendance, Sola Ipsa, it was directed, shot, choreographed, danced and edited entirely by one person.

As personal as it gets, it is a reflection on the urge to exert control over other animals’ (human and non-human) bodies and lives.

Tracks used:
– Heinäsirkat II (A Birdsong Shatters The Still) by SalakapakkaSound System vs. The Day Of The Antler, CC BY 1.0 FI
– Fakecore deconstruction! by techtheist, CC BY 4.0
– Feral Drifts by Yellow Omm, CC BY 4.0
– Fuzzy Pink Dice by Jar of Flies, license CC BY 4.0
– All Aglow by Ov Moi Omm, CC BY 4.0
– So sorry little girl by ROZKOL, CC BY 4.0

I am here

She could not remember the last time he had really slept. The sensation of being alive came, as it always did, in the small hours. She tried to move, tried to raise herself. A movement of one or two inches, that was all, the movement of an arm. Not even that. She moved the air, as if it had a weight.

The text was generated by MODEL: GPT-J-6B, gender forms adjusted by the choreographer.

Premiere: November 2021

Where exactly inside you are you? What are you thinking with? Why do you call the intelligence of a machine artificial and is yours – real? How will the topography of your consciousness change if you walk through it with a map of your dreams?

Concept, choreography, dance, music [see below]: Anna Juniewicz

Duration: 30 minutes

Premiere: 27 Nov 2021, Butoh Kai Festival

My research on this performance began with a statement I once heard and then forgot where I heard it. Sounding questionable both from a dancer’s and (I suppose) the author’s perspective, I used a part of it as a title. It took me on a journey of human and non-human cognition through different bodily frameworks and lenses.

*A full list of tracks and sounds used (modified/remixed):

• Lance Mannion Orchestra – My Corn Aches (CC BY 3.0 US)
• Lance Mannion Orchestra – Plef Perf Noof (CC BY 3.0 US)
• Fashionfacts – machine n°3 (CC BY 4.0)
• Fashionfacts – outro (CC BY 4.0)
• Miquel Parera – NXA006PD-2014-10-26_00_50_25-1 (CC BY 4.0)
• Itsensäsyöjät – untitled (CC BY 4.0)
• Itsensäsyöjät – End titles (CC BY 4.0)
• Kosta T – Звонкий Голос (CC BY 4.0)
• ERH – cinematic deep bass rumble (CC BY 3.0)
• kingvitaman – Drug sequence (CC0 1.0)
• hupguy – heart-rate-monitors (CC0 1.0)
• _{Malachi – Panic Room (CC BY 4.0)}
• Demoiselle Döner – I like when the red water comes out (CC0 1.0)
• Demoiselle Döner – Lack of reality between the world and my eyes (CC0 1.0)
• _{PAS DANS LE CUL AUJOURD’HUI} – Les Roses Ouvertes Pour Rien (_{CC0 1.0)}
• Water Sark – Voie Lactée (CC BY 4.0)
• Birds of Paradise – Fragments Of Self (CC BY 4.0)
• Drums Like Machine Guns – Brains and Shit Everywhere (CC0 1.0)
• Futuristic Caveman – Dirty Beet Roots (CC BY 4.0)

Sola Ipsa

Sola Ipsa is a screendance shot for Exhibition Space Dance 2021, an international online event initiated in Tokyo by Tetsuro Fukuhara.

The title refers to an unexpected quatantine which forced me to make the video entirely by myself. Locked down, I had no choice but to dive into a joyful trial-and-error process and do all the choreographing, dancing, shooting, image and sound editing. The words “sola ipsa” stem from solipsism: I changed latin solus ipse (“me, by myself”) to a feminine form sola ipsa.

Incidentally, “me, by myself” (“ja siama” in childish Polish) was also a playful nickname that my parents gave me when I was little – because each time someone was trying to offer me help, I would immediately answer “no! by myself”. And this was even before I learnt to properly pronounce “sama”.

The entrance music is When All Is Said and Done by Ancient Methods https://ancientmethods.bandcamp.com/track/when-all-is-said-and-done
All tracks and sounds used are listed in the end credits.

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If you read until this point, you may enjoy a short making of video, too:

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A site-specific performance in collaboration with Aurora Collective. Displayed on a front wall of the modernist Glass House which played a big role in the protests for women’s rights in Poland 2020/2021.

Watch “Stigmata” on YT

In a duo with Wojtek Matejko, we did a dance performance against illegal logging in the last European primeval forest (Puszcza Białowieska) in Poland. We performed at the location of logging. The video was shot by Wawrzyniec Hłasko & Adam Rosołowski.

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