Anja Müller

Anja Müller

Course
DAS Choreography
Class
2008

After a childhood filled with singing, dancing, practicing rhythmic gymnastics, being in nature, sharing hip-hop movements and building robots, Anja Müller decided to study law. She thought it would be better to understand the rules of society and politics than to constantly live her life on grounds of desire and intuition.

However, inspired by the animalistic and boneless quality of the movement of the Batsheva Dance Company, she quit Law School to pursue a dance career, enrolling in a three-year education in Contemporary Dance in Berlin. During and after her studies she worked as a performer and choreographer with different artists like Dumb Type and Cena11.

In her study, she investigated fiction and reality of selves and theatre. Seeking to broaden her understanding of what dance, performance and art in general is, she searched for ways of freeing herself from conventions and settled definitions.

In recent years she has been particularly interested in collaborative work and in combining artistic fields of performance, like music, dance and theatre. Anja Müller is still very interested in the theatre as a place where magic is possible and she wonders how she can be one of those magicians...

Other Projects

‘Slow Function Motion’  (2007)
Performed at Ostadetheater Amsterdam
A duet with Fanni Futterknecht about the ability of bodies and objects to affect or to be affected.

'I4' (2007)
Performed at Theaterschool Amsterdam
with:  Aparna Kolar, Chris Leuenberger, Lea Martini and Roger Sala Reyner aka Anja Müller

'I4' is a performative lecture on being Anja Müller. 4 Performers. Their name is Anja Müller. Their clothes are Anja Müller’s. And they are holding a scientific lecture about their specific research and interest in Anja Müller’s identity: intimacy, numeral facts, unconscious movements, the walk of Anja Müller.
'I4' is an ironic attempt to find out about what is particularly "müllerish" and if the real core of Anja Müller will finally be revealed in all the details offered.  

‘Me, my army and Harvey’ (2007)
Performed at Theaterschool Amsterdam
With and without: Anja Müller

A solo about fiction and reality of theatre. About identity as a fact or as a fiction. Identity of the audience and the performer in space and time. About expectations of an audience. About how to manipulate their perceptions. About what is, will or might be possible in this moment. Or maybe not.

‘Any resemblance to real-life characters is purely accidental: on being Anja Müller (2)’
Art journalist Raymond Frenken describes Müller’s performance and connects it to her previous work, ‘I4’. The text vividly recounts the scenes of the piece while framing them in relation to a text by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek about the search for the Self and the virtualization of society.


‘T.O.T.G.’ (2007)
Performed at Theaterschool Amsterdam
with: Lea Martini, Anja Müller, Phillip J and Emma Wilson

TOTG is a pilot research project supported by the Psychology Department of the UvA investigating observation methods of the human subject.
It is conducted by people with a fascination to probe deeper and more extensively than that of any surveillance camera.


‘Amateur and Meat are playing live in Milky Way’ (2008)
A duet with Taavet Jansen, performed at Melkweg Theater, Amsterdam, Baltoscandal Festival 2008 in Estonia, Tanztage Festival Berlin 2009

Why did Zappa shit on stage? And why don't we? Anja Müller and Taavet Jansen perform a live concert to blur the boundaries between concert and dance performance. And they rock you like meat and amateurs!

"Amateur and Meat met. It was stormy. It was sweet. It was strange. The stage filled with energy was ruled by multifunctional performers whose magnetic voices, skilful use of musical instruments, bizarre dance and theatrical characteristics carried the audience of the festival tent completely away.[…] Taavet Jansen´s and Anja Müller´s interdisciplinary concert-performance was freaky deviation from ordinary (rock) concert and usual (dance) theatre. It wasn´t an egg nor a chicken but a light-yellow chick who innocently tapped the tail of a sleeping fox."
Ireene Viktor ( at Baltoscandal Festival 2008, Estonia)

www.myspace.com/amateurlearns
www.amateurlearns.blogspot.com

    
‘Blood in the Gutter’ (2008)
A Duet with Dennis Deter, performed at Melkweg Theater Amsterdam

‘Blood in the Gutter’ deals with the romantic need of Anja Müller and Dennis Deter to take the audience on to a journey. Inspired by film and comic art they were searching for the magic in storytelling. Images of old postcards being projected on to a white screen become the stage for lifeless tiny puppet-actors being moved by giant performer fingers.
Without language, without implanting a pre-made narrative, ‘Blood in the Gutter’ creates space for everyone’s own thoughts, fantasies and storylines. 

Radio pro: Invasion of the amateurs
Funny fictive radio cast show talking about amateurism in art and particularly in music. Coming from fascination with amateurism as a means of changing the established structures and questioning definition and issues on quality. The writing blends fact and fiction using the voices of her fictional characters Bang Olufsen, Gabriel Peter and Aimee Idol.

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