STEFANIE SOURIAL - Colonial Cocktail Volume 3: Digestivo

Introducing her new stage series, Stefanie Sourial distills the essence out of the last four-hundred years of European colonial history and packs it into a fluid sixty-minute performance. Colonial Cocktail is a boomerang-like swing, tracking the origins of spirits and other currently trending alcoholic drinks and returning to the present, spicy on the tongue and bitter in the finish.

Every night, there is highly concentrated history flowing in Vienna’s bars, much of it originating in Europe’s colonial history. But who pays attention to their drink’s history while enjoying it? Using performance and narration, Stefanie Sourial reveals the colonial ties associated with spirit-based beverages and the effects they have on our current society. In doing so, she is accompanied by varying guests from different fields of art. How did today’s trending drinks come into existence? How do spirits influence our lives? Why is it political to drink uhudler wine?

Complex colonial issues, addressed in the intimate setting of a bar and mixed with a history of violence in diverse shots from older and more recent vintages, will unfold a bittersweet bouquet. The traces of history Stefanie Sourial shows us using examples of ever-present alcohol will result in unexpected discoveries in our immediate surroundings.

Artist Talk after the PERFORMANCE

Stefanie Sourial works as a performance artist in Vienna, London and Bristol and teaches performance art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 2007, she graduated from the International Jacques Lecoq School for performance and directing in Paris. She has been creating her own shows since 2009, some of which include FREAK (2015), was part of the collective Club Burlesque Brutal (2009–2015) and collaborates with the prize-winning London company Theatre Ad Infinitum as well as with artists in Vienna such as Barbis Ruder, Carola Dertnig, Denice Bourbon, Denise Kottlett, Gin Müller, Katrina Daschner, Katharina Mückstein, Michikazu Matsune, Mira Lu Kovacs, the Nesterval collective, Veza Fernández and Sophie Stockinger.

Mzamo Nondlwana, born 1986 in Johannesburg, South Africa, took up their dance training with Cie. Moving into Dance Mophatong in 2006. In 2009, they moved to Salzburg, where they concluded their studies in contemporary dance and choreography at SEAD – Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. As a performer, Nondlwana worked with such choreographers as Nigel Charnock, Michikazu Matsune, Doris Uhlich and others. They are part of the DJ collective Bisha Boo, that shines a light on queers, trans-gender, indigenous and black people as well as people of colour.

Bonelli Bassano is a queer multimedia artist with roots in Italy, France and Morocco. They currently live in Vienna and work in Berlin and Rabat. Bassano concentrates on how we handle social constraints, how we resist and generate different realities. In their work, which combines performance and installation, they attribute an important part in the dynamic process between intimate narratives and collectivity to sounds and voices.