Wien Modern introduces its first Relaxed Performance with hutan
The sound installation at Tanzquartier Wien makes different ways of moving, listening and responding part of the experience.
Wien Modern is introducing its first Relaxed Performance through hutan (forest), a sound installation by Points of Listening at Tanzquartier Wien on 28 and 29 November. The change concerns how an audience can inhabit a listening space: movement, changes of position and audible responses are welcomed rather than treated as interruptions.
The festival’s guidance explicitly includes people on the autistic spectrum, people with Tourette syndrome, learning difficulties or chronic pain. Visitors may sit, lie down or move around. This describes the conditions offered by the production; it is not a promise that one format will meet every visitor’s access needs.
The work draws on recordings made during a 24-hour expedition in the Rungan forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, in 2023. Selected fragments form an immersive installation in which dancers’ movements meet the recorded environment. Tanzquartier presents it as an Austrian premiere, co-produced with Wien Modern. The project also names collaboration with local partners in Indonesia.
Admission is booked for a stated entry period. The co-producer says visitors can choose how long they stay, subject to capacity. That distinction matters for a durational work: a ticketed arrival slot does not require everyone to listen in the same way for an identical length of time.
For SCENE:ID, the significant local development is the audience model alongside the sound work. Vienna’s experimental listening culture is gaining a festival presentation that explicitly accommodates different bodily responses. The November performances will show how those stated principles work in the room.