LIA / DanceMusicTheater Projects

The four-part film series “LIA Mirabell Talks”, available online, provide information and contextual background about Karin Mairitsch and her book published in 2020: Helmi Vent – ​​Lab Inter Arts. Insights into the Performance-Lab «Hätte Hätte Fahrradkette» [shoulda woulda coulda].

The 92-min. film, online published, significantly shaped by the participating protagonists, offers insights into the regular, weekly Lab Inter Arts processes and serves as template for AV-based artistic research. Lab support and film production: Helmi Vent.

The LIA project at the “Science & Art” institution focuses on experimental-improvisational work processes during an ongoing semester, introduced by small ‘work’-excerpts from the university and life studies of the participants and summarized in a video in 2016.

The 62-minute film documents the project “Life Artists – Life Art” in the city center of Salzburg (language German). In this way, people offer insights into possibilities of mutual swap and exchange using creative means within their respective stages of life.

“30 Years – Where Would We End Up?” – The leitmotif of the double event on 17 May 2013: An 80-min. jubilee film about 30 years of Lab Inter Arts work with hundreds of students and Helmi Vent as well as a celebration of her retirement at the Solitär of Mozarteum University Salzburg.

“Life Artists – Life Art”, 2012–13, a one-year encounter, a swap and exchange project with Salzburg’s life artists, who are creatively effective outside the current aesthetic and cultural mainstream.

The improvisation-oriented portrait work, which began in 2011, continues with the aim of a fully composed and AV-documented performance portrait, which will be presented for discussion as part of a public screening on May 15, 2012, at the Solitär, Mozarteum.

An interactive vocal theatre project in Manado, Indonesia, 10–29 February 2012 with the Manado State University Choir, MSUC, initiated by André de Quadros, Professor of Music at Boston University, USA, carried out by Helmi Vent, recorded and edited by Martin G. Hantich.

Following the joint projects in Goa (2009) and Mumbai (2010), the film documentary “City Walks Mumbai 2010” provides an occasion for a critical examination of the ConCom experiments of the Salzburg students at the Austrian Cultural Forum, New Delhi, India.

The first part of the inter-university self-portrait series begins with performative processes of a “pro-trahere” (“drawing forth”, Latin loan word for “por-trait”), followed by analyses and evaluations of AV recordings as well as designed portrait drafts.

A five-day guest course with Lisa Sokolov, the US-American singer, composer and professor for voice-art at New York University. The offered integral voice and body work is based on the concept of “Embodied VoiceWork” developed by Lisa Sokolov. Guest course management: Helmi Vent.

The public discussion about the project film (42 min.) focuses on the artistic, communicative and socio-cultural potential of the three-week project work in Mumbai, India, as well as the AV documentation as an arts-based research tool at the Institute Lab Inter Arts.

A cooperation project with the Institute Lab Inter Arts of the Univ. Mozarteum, the University of Salzburg, and, for the first time, the programme MultiMediaArt of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, winter term 2010–11, supplemented by the lecture “From Dada to the present” (H. Vent).

A three-week intercultural encounter, exchange and experimental performance project with daily changes in perspective and knowledge among the participating students from Salzburg, Austria, and various partners from Mumbai, State of Maharashtra, India. Project support: Nivedita Deshpande.

Documents from 1995 to 2010 from the LIA film archive are presented for discussion, including the socially relevant question of the performance piece “Will you Play your Hurdy-Gurdy to my Songs?” Live performer in the Solitär stairwell: Judith Hirsch.

An intercultural encounter-, performance and study project with students from the School of Drama (Head: Padmashree Josalkar), Kala Academy, Goa, India, and from the Institute Lab Inter Arts, Salzburg, Austria. A collaborative initiative by André de Quadros, BU, USA, carried out by Helmi Vent.

A series of Lab Inter Arts explorations in various basement spaces including their usage regulations. Rough stair and wall landscapes raise unusual aesthetic and political questions between concrete walls, dirt, dust and white tiles.

Outdoor expeditions in the surroundings of Salzburg's Mirabellplatz. Perceptual exercises, documentations and interpretations in the frame of AV-supported arts-based field research. A project combining practice and theory for students and interested parties from the surrounding area. April 2008–October 2009.

A protest action by Helmi Vent on the portal steps of the Kollegienkirche (Universitätskirche) Salzburg on the dismissal of University Parish Priest Andreas M. Jakober by Archbishop Dr. Alois Kothgasser, July 20, 2008. Co-op performers: Alexander Wengler, Stefan Ebner. AV recording by ORF Salzburg.

A two-semester scenic-performative interrogation of belief doctrines, systemic religious traditions, New and Old Testament scriptural excerpts (Seminar) in the University Church of Salzburg with 16 Students and University Parish Priest Andreas M. Jakober. Public presentations in June 2007.

Film chapters from the sound and space-sound research project “Songs of(f) Stage” (1998) for the “Open House Day” as part of the opening of the new Mozarteum building on Salzburg's Mirabellplatz, October 14, 2006. Hourly screenings followed by a discussion. Film arrangements: Jakob M. Kubizek.

An experimental music theatre–Lab and Seminar for string instrumentalists, specialized in Violin, Yatga (knee harp) and Morin Khuur (horse head fiddle) at the “College of Music and Dance”, Ulanbaator (Mongolia), September 01–13, 2006. Guest lecturer: Helmi Vent, interpreter: Purevsuren Byambaa.

The film, which was recontextualised in 2005, brings together performative fragments from biography-oriented video documentaries. These are put up for discussion in the context of dynamic concepts of identity and the socio-cultural conditioning of the composer-performers.

Based on the sound recordings of the experimental space-sound-body theatre “Songs of(f) Stage – Dedicated to Mauricio Kagel”, 1998, the “Songs” are created as part of a sound research project in a newly contectualized audio format with Helmi Vent, Michele Gaggia and Isabeella Beumer.

Sound and word speeches in instant dialogues and improvised interludes: Contributions to the congress “Mensch und Musik” (Man and Music), March 7–9, 2002, with teachers and students of the Mozarteum University as well as guest soloists in collaboration with the ORF Landesstudio Salzburg.

“I walked along ...”, the interrupted beginning of a Goethean journey of thought as leitmotif for a SpaceSoundBody-Theatre, developed on site for the International Symposium “Music and Humanity”, Frankfurt 2001, management: H.G. Bastian. Text contribution and performance-direction: Helmi Vent.

A SpaceSoundBody-Theatre developed at the University of Music and Performing Arts Frankfurt for the opening of the conference Neue Musik in Szene, 2000. At the same time an aesthetic research project on “Space as Instrument and Co-Regisseur”, led by Helmi Vent.

An experimental sound research and performance project for the opening of the “22nd International Festival of Contemporary Music – Aspekte Salzburg”, May 1998, with students, young people from the surrounding area, VoiceArtist Lauren Newton, video feeds and technical direction Chris Amrhein. Project and sound research concept: Helmi Vent.

The music theatre piece follows the thought-provoking and interconnected final question of the poem or song “Der Leiermann” from the cycle “Winterreise” (1827) by Wilhelm Müller and Franz Schubert: “Will you play your hurdy-gurdy to my songs?”. Salzburg 1995, Melbourne, Australia 1995, Cape Town, South Africa 1997.

An interactive festive project for the opening of the academic year 1994-95: 32 performers design acoustic puzzle games, instrumental, vocal and dance actions involving the audience, based on the solution word OPENING, composition ideas and recited excerpts from “Silence” by John Cage.

“Table Talks” tell of everyday encounters, heated clashes and debates, and reflective aha! moments – created by composer-performers using their very own body language, gestures, and sounds at angular tables. First-time event partnership with SZENE Salzburg 1992.

A performance project based on the music of the same name by Charles Ives (1908) as a leitmotif between Ives “Perennial Questions of Existence”, the “Invisible Answers” and the performers with action and instrumental theatre live resonances. Salzburg (Austria) and Bochum (Germany) 1990.

“Where are you, Adam?” (Genesis 3:9) follows Kurt Marti's question: “Where would we go if everyone said: Where would we go and no one went to see where we would get to”. A critical-performative contribution to the ecological environmental debate of the 1980s.

“d... d... does anyone here know anything about art?” – questions from the performers about ART as a form of perception, expression, a way of life and a way of thinking. AV documented project development with the TanzMusikWerkstatt, Mozarteum, and Helmi Vent. Salzburg, Köln and München 1987.

“Please take a seat”, the first performance project at the Mozarteum to be documented on audio-visual media (1983), explores and grapples with cultural and societal aspects of sitting (Sitzen), possessing (Besitzen), taking and occupying a seat. TanzMusikWerkstatt, Mozarteum, and Helmi Vent. Salzburg 1985 u.1987, Köln and München 1987.