Performing art from around the world in Linz

Starting today, a new festival at the OK and Musiktheater in Linz will showcase new approaches to performance art. Entitled “The Irreplaceable Body?” About 20 artists from around the world deal with the function of the real body in the digital age. The festival, which runs until Sunday, is organized by Landes-Kultur-GmbH.

Vienna-based Frida Fiala and Taiwanese performance artist Paris River Lane coordinate. “For example, we wonder what happens when the artist’s body enters the digital space,” says Fiala, outlining one of the focal points.

One of the invited guests is Xavier Le Roy from France, who will be showing his iconic work “Product of Circumstances” tomorrow at 2pm at the Musiktheater. He developed this choreography in 1999 and has already performed it at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Tate Gallery in London. “This work influenced many other artists,” says Fiala. In it, Le Roy explores what happens to an artist as he gets older and how his body becomes an archive.

Sarah Lanner, who taught at Bruckner University in Linz, will also trade the audience tomorrow (7.30pm) in her performance of “Caught in the Blockchain” in OK: Personal Objects for So-called Tokens, in their case coveted performance. Jianan Qu from China developed work with dance students from Bruckneruni that reflects the relationship between the body and technology: to watch tomorrow (1.30pm, musical theater) and Sunday (8.30pm, OK).

Towards the end of the festival there will be a live show on Sunday (okay, 7.30pm) with David Henry Nobody Jr., who will be connected via live chat from New York. The American is famous for his colorful makeup on Instagram. There are at least 114,000 followers.

performance festival (June 17-19) Opens today at 7 p.m. at Linzer OK. More information is available ooekultur.at