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- You are here: Home > PROGRESSIVE TOUCH
You are here
Online -
Friday, November 27, 2020 - 21:00
Written by:
Michael Portnoy
Cast:
Tizo All, Ilona Bankiraj, Marc Philipp Gabriel, Juan Felipe Amaya González, Astrid Panaken
Cinematography:
Darja Pilz
Editing:
Camila Mercadal
Music:
Stefan Meier, Michael Portnoy
Producer:
Esther Niemeier, Julia Simpson
Production:
Steirischer Herbst, Stichting Beeldende Kunst Middelburg De Vleeshal
Can you fuck to an irregular beat? PROGRESSIVE TOUCH depicts three moody, absurdist love scenes in which the goal is to “improve” sex by complicating its rhythm and choreography. Sex as dance as comedy. Enacted by three real-life couples, the dancers' every explicit move is synchronized to the propulsive, unpredictable score which borrows elements from progressive rock, trap, and math metal.
Director:
MICHAEL PORTNOY (b. 1971, Washington, DC, USA) is a New York-based artist. Coming from a background in dance and stand-up comedy, his performance-based work employs a variety of media: from participatory installations to sculpture, painting, writing, theater, video, and curation. Portnoy is largely concerned with manipulating language and behavior as a tool for world-bending – either in his "Relational Stalinist" game structures in which confusion, complication, and ambiguity are used to stretch participants' speech and movement; or his quest to "improve" existing breeds of art through re-engineering. He has presented internationally in museums, art galleries, theatres, and music halls, including recently the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2015); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2014); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2013); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2013); The Kitchen, New York, USA (2013) and dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel, Germany (2012).
Festivals, awards:
Best Short Film – Pornfilmfestival Berlin 2020 / Rotterdam 2020 / Queer Lisboa 2020/ Honorable Mention - Norwegian Kortfilmfestivalen / Best International Short - Leiden Shorts
“PROGRESSIVE TOUCH spares us almost nothing in the genital and oral departments, the universal mime of body parts, extrusions and insertions. Brilliantly choreographed, stage-lit and soundtracked, PORTNOY (could ever an artist have been better named for this work?) has the dream that young lovers might use these hilarious, sexy and joyful vignettes as instructional videos.” (Adrian Searle, The Guardian)