artist’s statement
My work is grounded in the languages of the moving, writing, and speaking body and researches relationships of meaning production in dance, poetic text and translation. Choreographic and movement research is approached from a place of body listening, influenced by my training in improvisation, butoh, and somatic research, and rooted in principles of contemporary and classical technique. Drawing on investigations I have been conducting since moving to Berlin in 2015 on a research fellowship to develop my ideas of translation between poetry and dance, I see embodied translation as the metaphorical lens through which to link the various nodes of my artistic practice. This practice also extends to collaborating with scientists and artists on transdisciplinary research and performance projects, and to sharing my knowledge by teaching workshops on composition in movement, text, and performance. In my current research, I have been investigating the traces of translating Meret Oppenheim’s collected poems on my moving body and brain, and exploring the compositional and choreographic possibilities of the “growth point” in human expression as a linking point between linguistic utterance and gesture. This work exists to re-center the corporeality of human insight, which I see as a form of aesthetic activism in the face of our increasingly automated, late capitalist reality.
clockwise from top left: setting The Denby Variations on Irena Wiktor and Rossella Russolo, 2022; credit: Jens Winter I Collection & Identification, Berlin (a)live, 2020 I The Denby Variations collective poem, ACUD, Berlin, 2022; credit: Jens Winter I correspondances, feat. Alex Verster, Campus Biotech, 2022; credit: Arnaud Laffond I Ten Scores for a Sculpture, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2017; concept & installation: Stella Geppert; credit: T. Bruns I leaves, Berlin, 2017; artwork: Jules Bradbury; credit: Anton Dorokh I The Tenderness Manifesto, Helsinki, 2019 I correspondances, feat. Alex Verster, Flux Laboratory, Geneva, 2022; credit: Anton Dorokh I Vexierfrage, Berlin Performing Arts Festival, 2018; credit: Maciej Soja I Still Dancing, Open Studios Rungestr, Berlin, 2016; concept: Hilla Steinert; credit: Magda Korinsky
performances
The Fall at Hopscotch Reading Room, a poetry+translation+dance performance, Berlin, November 5, 2023
“The Denby Variations,” a kheil workshop project, supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR, Theaterhaus Mitte, and the Estate of Edwin Denby, performance + hybrid Zoom panel discussion at ACUD, Berlin, November 23, 2022
“correspondances,” by Kathleen Heil, featuring an EEG experiment in collaboration with Gwénaël Birot and music by Alexander Verster, supported by Flux Laboratory, Campus Biotech and the Embassy of Foreign Artists, additional support from l'Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, at Flux Laboratory, Geneva, June 2022
“Collection & Identification,” concept, choreography, performance & poem by Kathleen Heil, score by Michael Jeffrey Lee & Jeff T Byrd, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within NEUSTART KULTUR, via the DIS-TANZEN program of the Federal Association of Dance in Germany, on demand at Berlin (a)live, Dec 2020
“Abstand,” text by Kathleen Heil, dance by Kathleen Heil & Hilla Steinert, dispatch & virtual performance for the Best American Poetry, May 2020
THE TENDERNESS MANIFESTO, concept, choreography, & performance by Kathleen Heil, Museum of Impossible Forms, Helsinki, Nov 2019
“Körpereinsatz,” Vernissage performance of “Ten Scores for a Sculpture,” concept by Stella Geppert, with Lukas Geschwind and Birte Opitz, Kunsthalle der Sparkasse Leipzig, June 2018
“Vexierfrage,” concept, choreography, & performance by Kathleen Heil as part of Lass Stecken #1, K77, Performing Arts Festival Berlin, June 2018
Trajectories #01, “Ten Scores for a Sculpture,” concept by Stella Geppert, with Jan Burkhardt, Lukas Geschwind, Michelle Lui, and Hilla Steinert, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, Aug 2017
Still Dancing, concept by Hilla Steinert, with Evan Foster and Jonas Wendritt, Open Ateliers Rungestraße Berlin, April 2016
Día de la Danza, ContactMadrid, dancer/performer, Plaza de Oriente, Madrid, Apr 2009
Noche en Blanco, CI dancer/performer, Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid, Oct 2008
Rumblepeg Dance Theater, “Mongrel,” company member and team choreographer, Northern CA, 2007
Movement Research, Open Performance series curated by Kiyoko Kashiwagi, untitled solo dance performance, New York, March 2005
A Public Hanging, installation performance by Assocreation, Atlas Meats, Meatpacking District, New York, Winter 2005
Bedlam Theatre, “Passing Places,” “Etchy Sketchy,” performer and writer, Edinburgh, 2002-2003
Dance Arizona Repertory Theatre, company member/dancer, Phoenix, 2000-2001
Contemporary Arts Center, solo dance performance, DramaRama7 festival, New Orleans, May 2000
video links
Two poems by Meret Oppenheim, excerpt from a poetry+translation+dance performance, Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin, November 5, 2023
“The Denby Variations” by Kathleen Heil, based on the dance writings of Edwin Denby, featuring music by Christoph Enzel, speaker Hanna Mattes, and the dancers Rossella Russolo and Irena Wiktor, Berlin, Nov 2022
“The Denby Variations” panel discussion on Edwin Denby, dance writing, poetry and performance, moderated by Nine Yamamoto-Masson, with Veronica Posth in person, Jeffrey Lependorf and Brian Seibert online, Berlin, Nov 2022
“correspondances,” concept, choreography, poem & performance by Kathleen Heil, music composed & performed by Alexander Verster, Geneva, June 2022
“Collection & Identification,” concept, choreography, performance & poem by Kathleen Heil, score by Michael Jeffrey Lee & Jeff T Byrd, K77, Berlin, Dec 2020
“Abstand,” concept, choreography, & performance by Kathleen Heil & Hilla Steinert, K77, Berlin, May 2020
“Vexierfrage,” concept, choreography, & performance by Kathleen Heil as part of Lass Stecken #1, K77, Performing Arts Festival Berlin, June 2018
“Ten Scores for a Sculpture,” concept by Stella Geppert, with Jan Burkhardt, Lukas Geschwind, Michelle Lui, and Hilla Steinert. Berlin, 2017-2018
“leaves,” concept & performance: by Kathleen Heil & Jules Bradbury; drawing: Jules Bradbury, choreography: Kathleen Heil; Berlin, 2017
“Still Dancing,” performance at Open Ateliers Rungestraße Berlin; concept by Hilla Steinert, with Evan Foster & Jonas Wendritt. Berlin, 2016
Sunday Studies; instant compositions by Kathleen Heil. Berlin, 2016