A change is as good as a rest 

A rest is as good as a crash 

A leap is as good  

as an hour of sleep 

A change of scenery is as good  

as a sense of self 

A change of air is as good  

as a sense of purpose

Another job is as good  

as this one 

Your love is as good  

as an hour of sleep 

Your friendship is as good  

as your workforce 

Your rest is more work for me

You rest on my work 

I rely on my changing 

I will never stop loving you 

I am ready to stop.

The dance and audio piece A Change is as Good as a Rest uses movement, music and text to explore how work gives rhythm to our lives and our attempts to outsmart linear time. We become uncertain whether we need more love or a break or a quiet minute or a sabbatical or a radical break or fresh air or a crash or a sharp brake to get out of the uninterrupted sequence of mutually rhythmic activities that make up our everyday lives. Between paid/unpaid, alienating/identity-defining, relational/isolating work – how do we sense while working that something is ending, that a time is slowly changing? How can we coexist when we no longer agree on what time it is, when NOW no longer happens at the same time for everyone, when we have taken different turns in time? 

TEAM

Artistic direction, dance Elsa Artmann

Dance, co-creation Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, Anne-Lene Nöldner, Diana Treder

Composition, live soundtrack Annie Bloch

Access dramaturgy for blind and visually impaired audiences, expertise in artistic audio description Lilian Korner 

Outside Eye Lili M. Rampre 

Dramaturgy Valerie Wehrens 

Graphic design Ondine Pannet 

Sound Edis Ludwig 

Lighting Jasper Diekamp 

Co-costume design Noemi Baumblatt 

Photography Robin Junicke, Arne Schmitt 

Video Cecilia Gläsker 

Elsa Artmann / SANFTE ARBEIT

The ensemble works with dance as a starting point for interdisciplinary formats that include choreography, radio plays and book publications, and have recently been developing in the direction of contemporary musicals. Through movement, text and voice, they explore topics that initially make us feel powerless – such as the nuclear family, housing, nationalism and work – and devise ‘exercises for different circumstances’. Since 2022, Elsa Artmann / SANFTE ARBEIT have been exploring (emotional, care and relationship) work in cultural capitalism in various formats (in addition to stage plays, radio plays, short films and a digital platform for collaborative writing). We understand our practice as documentary in a synthesis of everyday experience and (media) witnessed current events. In the transitions between language, sound and movement, the ensemble explores the accessibility of its own work from different senses and levels of perception. 

http://www.sanfte-arbeit.de/