Jessica's artistic work glides back and forth between different performance worlds: while her early projects were primarily choreographic in nature, her more recent productions vary in terms of form and expression. What the choreographer's works have in common, however, is the search for a practice and aesthetic of sharing and exchange and the lived desire for collaboration. Accordingly, Jessica has made collaborations with other artists her primary working method. Formats such as walks, residencies and workshops are an essential part of her creative process.
Jessica trained in contemporary dance, choreography and dance & theatre studies at the Laban Centre/City University London. Together with Karin Arnold, she is a founding member of the performance collective mercimax.
She has been part of the Tanzhaus dramaturgy pool on a mandate basis since 2020. In 2025 she would like to merge her dramaturgical and artistic activities within the house more closely and also share insights and practices from her research series rituals of tenderness.
Special
Jessica Huber
Rituals of tenderness *3: friendship & forgiveness
Jessica Huber says, friendship gives her security - and forgiveness gives her comfort. Inspired by a chapter from Hartmut Rosa's book Resonance, she asked herself whether we can acquire trust and forgiveness through movement sequences and make the process more fluid, more permeable or more familiar - whether we can practise opening, closing and holding.
We will first work individually and then in groups on folding, holding, unfolding, stretching, or covering our own and other bodies. The second part involves body contact. The practice can be done standing and sitting/lying down.
Bring comfortable clothes!
Rituals of tenderness is the title of a multi-year research project by Jessica Huber. It is also the title of a series of events at Tanzhaus Zürich, which consists of a mixture of gatherings, body practices, rituals, sense-ABILITY trainings and small sharings.
Jessica Huber says: ‘When I had already formulated the first ideas for the rituals of tenderness research, Olga Tokarczuk spoke about tenderness in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature. The quote below is an extract from it. She found words for why tenderness is so powerful for me and what I am essentially talking about when I write about tenderness: connection or connectedness, careful attention, radical sensing and perhaps a form of resonance. But I also believe that this care-ful look at something other than our self that she writes about can also be directed at ourselves.
Tenderness is the most modest form of love. It is the kind of love that does not appear in the scriptures or the gospels, no one swears by it, no one cites it. It has no special emblems or symbols, nor does it lead to crime, or prompt envy. It appears wherever we take a close and CARE-ful look at another being, at something that is not our “self“.
The rituals of tenderness are aimed at all people who value shared experiences, being connected in times of division and moments of deep attention.
By and with Jessica Huber
Photos Jessica Huber
Dramaturgical support Tanzhaus Zürich Lisa Letnansky
Coproduction Tanzhaus Zürich
Supported by Landys & Gyr Stiftung