A new artistic initiative is taking shape in the region: Motion Mode of Dialogue in Tirol – founded in late 2023, the association wants to bring visual and performative arts together while building an inclusive, collaborative community. Based in Innsbruck, this young platform is founded by contemporary dancer and choreographer Tamara Maksymenko and visual artist and pole dancer Lucilla Patrizi. Their vision? To create a space where art can move – literally and metaphorically. Motion Mode wants to break the borders between disciplinary art forms and invite people into dialogue through movement and embodied artistic experience.

This article was created in collaboration with Choreographic Platform Austria (CPA)*

Rooted in Movement

Tamara Maksymenko has been dancing since early childhood. With over 30 years of experience in contemporary dance and contact improvisation, she has led workshops and performances in many countries around the globe. Alongside her dance education, she also studied body therapy and sociology, which shapes the way she teaches and creates. 

Lucilla Patrizi comes from a different direction. With an academic background in biology and visual arts, she is now active as an artist, a pole dance trainer and performer in Innsbruck and Southtyrol. For her, the scientific way of observing and the artistic way of expressing are closely connected. She often finds inspiration in nature – in rivers, forests, the shapes and movements of organic lifeforms – and uses drawing to explore this connection. “It’s not about making a perfect drawing,” she says, “but more about using it as a way to feel, to observe, like developing kind of a sixth sense.”

Tamara and Lucilla’s paths crossed in motion: “We first met in an open pole dance training,” recalls Lucilla. Their shared passion for movement quickly turned into collaboration, beginning with the digital dance project Witnessing, a group exhibition curated by Tamara during the pandemic. Other collaborative projects followed – including the organization of the Solo & CI Festival Tirol, which Tamara founded in 2019, and which now takes place under the roof of their association. „There was always the wish to include artistic elements in the festival program, and for this we needed to apply for grants. It was not so easy to do this as individual, freelancing artists. Now, as legal association, things are more structured“, Tamara explains, “but the association is not just about easier access to funding. It’s about community. About building something stable that supports local artists and brings people together.”

Though Contact Improvisation is not the association’s central and only focus, the yearly CI festival remains their major event. Over the years, it has evolved into a hub for contemporary dance, movement research, community dialogue, and artistic exploration in Tyrol.

This year’s festival, titled “The Very Beginning,” will take place from August 6 – 14, 2025. For this edition Tamara invited a special guest: CI pioneer Daniel Lepkoff. He is one of the early founders who developed Contact Improvisation back in the 1970s together with Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith. “To bring someone like Daniel here,” Tamara says, “means to reconnect with the original idea of what CI was in the beginning. Today, it can easily go in many directions and lose its socio-political roots.”

While CI continues to be an important part in the association’s network, Motion Mode is not only about one practice. Its activities go beyond dance, combining many different disciplines and inviting different people to join – across generations, backgrounds, and artistic expressions. From drawing sessions in nature to public sculptural performances – the focus stays on movement, body, and shared artistic expression.

Researching Movement – from Contact Impro to Pole Dance 

One such disciplinary is pole dance – an art form Lucilla and Tamara both explore and teach in their practices. For Lucilla, pole dance serves as a tool for artistic research and storytelling. She looks at it as part of her contemporary art practice: 

„For me it’s about how the body connects with the environment and with inner images like emotions, dreams, and sensations. I often mimic branches I find in the forest, or the way insects move, or how the wind interacts with plants.”

Lucilla mentions her background in biology and visual arts, treating movement as an analytical tool to observe and research. “It’s like playing the piano,” she explains. “After you learned the technique, you have a partiture of tools to explore and improvise more freely. ”

Tamara, whose foundation lies in contemporary and contact dance, is fascinated by pole as a counterpoint :“In CI, we try to be heavy, we follow gravity. In pole, we fight it, we want to be light. There is this tension – lightness vs. heaviness – that makes it interesting for me to explore.” Despite not having a formal pole training, she’s become an active performer and teacher, creating a hybrid practice between the different approaches.

“For me, coming from contemporary dance, it doesn’t matter whether you are fully dressed or wearing only short pants and a sports-bra when doing pole, there is a broad range of possibilities how to move with it”.

Lucilla agrees: “It’s definitely a contemporary practice. When you put research and artistic intention into it, the pole becomes a tool for expression, a part of the narrative.”

While pole dance in the West became widely recognized through American strip of the early 20th century, its future is more diverse. “We’re now seeing more men getting into pole dance, too,” Lucilla says. “In Innsbruck, our friend Oleksii Kolbei is a pole dance teacher, he’s also involved in our association. There’s still a gendered stigma to it, especially here in the region, but it’s slowly shifting.”

Funding remains a big challenge, particularly in this field of dance: “There’s very little cultural support for pole as an art form,” Lucilla says. “If there is any, it tends to come from the sports sector. That makes it harder to develop more experimental or conceptual projects.” Still, she remains committed to pushing the boundaries: Her next public pole performance will take place on May 31st in Innsbruck at Die Bäckerei Kulturbackstube, as part of a mixed-format event featuring various solo and group performances.

A Bridging Dialogue Between Disciplines 

Beyond performance, Lucilla also brings a deep interest in drawing as a form of sensing and interaction. Her new initiative within the Motion Mode association are artwalks where she invites participants to explore natural local environments through observational drawing. “It’s not an art class, in which you learn how to draw” she clarifies. “It’s a space to activate your senses and transform them in to a drawing. Drawing becomes a kind of automatic writing  –scrittura automatica – where perception flows through the hand without overthinking.” With this series, she is aiming to deepen people’s relationships with their surroundings and their inner worlds.

Tamara, meanwhile, is preparing a performative sculpture walk through Innsbruck in June, in collaboration with dancer and artist Judith Klemenc. The piece – addressing motherhood, gender roles, and modern-day feminism – will oppose glamour and domestic burden. “I’ll be dressed in glitter and makeup, carrying dirty dishes, a washing machine, and diapers,” the young mother says. “I will be walking sculpture, a living picture, not saying much but raising questions on our contemporary situation as women in society.”

With growing activity, Motion Mode of Dialogue in Tirol is still expanding. Alongside Tamara and Lucilla, more artists and collectives should be involved in the future. “For me, it’s about creating a community,” Tamara says. “A place where dance and interdisciplinary art come together. A platform that supports other artists – helps them apply for funding, realize their ideas, connect.” Lucilla adds: “It’s about collaboration, exchange, and exploring together”. What began as a shared practice between two artists is now growing into a living network of constant movement – of bodies, thoughts and connections. 

| Brigitte Egger

---

Dieser Beitrag entstand in Kollaboration mit:

*CHOREOGRAPHIC PLATFORM AUSTRIA

Die Choreographic Platform Austria (CPA) verfolgt das Ziel, das vielfältige choreographische Geschehen in den österreichischen Bundesländern sowohl für ein überregionales tanzinteressiertes Publikum als auch für internationale Expert*innen sichtbar zu machen. Dies wird einerseits durch eine biennale Veranstaltung erreicht, die ausgesuchte Tanz- und Performanceproduktionen aus Österreich präsentiert. Andererseits fungiert die CPA als Onlineplattform. Diese dient nicht nur dazu, Institutionen, Initiativen und Künstler*innen aus Österreich zu porträtieren, sondern auch als kuratierter Eventkalender, der einen Überblick über das Choreographie- und Tanzgeschehen in den einzelnen Bundesländern bietet.