Cooperativa Maura Morales: EpicDermis Stage Design

Latex prints and latex surfaces for the piece ‘EpicDermis’ by Cooperativa Maura Morales

Humans are homo hapticus. The sense of touch and feel is the first of our senses. Even before we hear, smell and taste, we feel and sense touch.

The skin is man’s largest organ – and at the same time his sensitive boundary between the self and the world. Every touch is both a sign of affection and an indication of potential danger. Every touch tells a story about the familiar and the strange, spells out a haptic vocabulary full of longing, in which the self seeks its place in the world.

The latest production by dancer and choreographer Maura Morales and composer Michio Woirgardt is a border crossing, a dance across the skin, in an intimate and expressive language of movement.

Powerful, raw imprints of the dancers‘ bodies

Manfred Borsch asked us if we could create skin-like latex for the piece ‘EpicDermis’ to place on the stage and project onto it, as well as body prints of the dancers.
We also planned for Manfred to film the removal of the latex impressions from the skin in close-up to create visuals for the performance.

The finished prints of the entire body are raw and wild. We have not straightened any edges and only patched the most necessary areas to achieve this very natural look.

Over the course of a day, we took impressions of the dancers. After detailed discussions at the beginning and further preparations, we began to cover each of the ensemble members in one layer of liquid latex after another.

When the resulting latex cover was finally thick enough and completely dry, it could be carefully removed.

A few days later, we were able to continue working on the prints. The holes and cuts had to be repaired with various materials and the latex had to be prepared so that it would survive several months as part of the stage play.

CREDITS:

Tänzer*innen: Martha Gardner, Kira Metzler, Guila Russo, Dario Rigaglia, Matthew Branham 
Konzept/ Regie/Choreographie: Maura Morales 
Komposition/Livesampling: Michio Woirgardt 
Dramaturgie: René Linke 
Assistenz: Matthea Pedersen, Pascal Schmidt 
Back-Up Tänzer: Pascal Schmidt 
Visuals: Manfred Borsch 
Bühnenbild: Manfred Borsch, Maura Morales 
Latex Arbeiten: Alexandra Reichart, Matthias Krauß 
Kostüme: Marion Strehlow 
Lichtdesign/Technische Leitung: Grace Morales Suso

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