Liis Vares is an Estonian choreographer and artist. She was born in a black box (theatre), has been flirting with the white cube (gallery), and is yearning for the gray zone (?). Treating the body as a material rather than a tool, she observes the boundaries between physical and mental, visible and invisible, personal and social, imaginary and real.
“I am interested in what spaces unfold when we let go of functionality, aesthetic sense, and learned norms (let’s imagine it is possible). We may not be able to peer into another person’s being, but can we create a space that evokes the sensation of being inside someone else’s body? What role does physical space play in an increasingly virtual world and vice versa?
In 2020, life took me to Rakvere, an empty apartment in a small town in Estonia. I didn’t choose that place; it was a free space outside my home to go and be alone during the lockdowns. I started to visit the apartment and observe myself and the traces I left there. I followed what was already there and asked myself what I needed and for what. From where comes the wish to change something, why what I already have is not enough? Through this way of being, I created three online pieces. In 2022, the apartment was open for people to visit on the spot and online during the international performing arts festival Baltoscandal under the title ‘Where Are You?’.
That’s how I enter Valga and VARES—like going in front of the mirror and asking, ‘Where am I?’ Or like placing a piece of material, a human body, in an environment and observing how it reacts. I’ll take notes and recordings, I let my attention lead and will be sharing my practice, found paths and spaces with you on the 11th of May.”
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