Ian Kaler studied Transmedial Art at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and graduated from the BA Pilot program Contemporary Dance, Context, Choreography at the Inter-University Center for Dance, the University of the Arts, Berlin. Since 2010 he develops his physical and creative practice in choreographic series in exchange with different artists through different (visual) media. From 2015 – 2017 Kaler developed the choreographic series o.T., German acronym for “untitled”. The first part of this series, o.T. | (the emotionality of the jaw), premiered at Halle G, Tanzquartier Vienna in February 2015 and was presented at Norrlandsoperan in Umeå in Sweden. The piece is the first collaboration with Jam Rostron aka Planningtorock. Planningtorock invited the percussionist Houwaida Hedfi for this production who performed live with Kaler and Rostron. The second piece – o.T. | (gateways to movement) – with Kaler, Rostron and the choreographer Philipp Gehmacher as a guest-performer, premiered at ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival in July 2015 and was presented at the German Tanzplattform in Frankfurt LAB in March 2016 and the Bienal de Danza Cali in Colombia in 2017. The third part of the series o.T. – (Incipient Futures) had its world premiere in November 2016 in Tanzquartier Vienna and was presented in December 2016 in HAU2 in Berlin and went on tour to Helsinki and in Mexico in 2017. As a new guest performer the dancer and fashion designer Setphane Peeps Moun joined Kaler and Rostron, as well as a new drummer Joy Leah Joseph. A special format within the o.T. Series is RAW PRACTICE that will be presented at LABO Stockholm in April 2018, curated by Cullbergbaletten. The building blocks of this new format are the core elements from the first, second and third part of the series. In a structured and improvised jam session Kaler and Planningtorock uncover their shared practice and further develop it in an intimate dialogue that communicates between different media and languages. Most recently Ian Kaler has premiered the piece LIVFE, the first of a new series of works that combine movement with (spoken) language, live music and live video at Akademietheater in the frame of ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival in August 2017. LIVFE will be presented in HAU1 in Berlin April 2018. Ian Kaler develops workshops as research formats analog to his choreographic series, so far for DOCH School for Dance and Circus Stockholm, ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival, Tanzquartier Vienna as well as for the Escuela Profesional de Danza in Mazatlán and the University of Sonora in Mexico. Besides giving workshops for professional dancers with mixed abilities he has also transmitted his practice in workshops for practitioners from backgrounds other than dance.
Planningtorock – aka Jam Rostron – is a Bolton-born Berlin-based singer-songwriter, composer, producer and director with three critically acclaimed studio albums of left-field dance to their name – not to mention various collaborations, operas, film scores and remixes. A self-taught, non-binary, working-class musician, they’ve spent a decade plus queering sound and vision as Planningtorock. Planningtorock debuted in the Noughties with 2006’s Have It All [Chicks On speed], finding artistic community among fellow DIY outliers and gender outlaws such as Peaches and The Knife. Their sound – tense, spellbinding dance music with classical flourishes, unexpected brass and pitched-down vocals that have become Planningotorock’s signature – have earned them a dedicated following. W, Planningtorock’s critically acclaimed 2011 debut on DFA, revealed a visionary and politicized producer. It offered up deeply queered art-pop – 2014’s All Love’s Legal (“a masterclass in left-of-centre dance music”, Mixmag), released on Rostron’s own imprint Human Level with banner-ready slogans (‘Patriarchy Over And Out’, ‘Let’s Talk About Gender Baby’), revealed their ability to combine pop-oriented music with a political message.