GESTURES/SITUATIONS: LISTENING WITHOUT A SCORE: LIISA HÕBEPAPPEL, KENN-ERIK KANNIKE, LIIS VARES

GESTURES/SITUATIONS: LISTENING WITHOUT A SCORE: is a series of short artistic actions. In the upcoming season there will be four GESTURES/SITUATIONS at the Estonian Contemporary Music Centre. Each GESTURE/SITUATION unfolds over ten days and culminates in a public gesture.

GESTURES/SITUATIONS: LISTENING WITHOUT A SCORE series stems from a desire to make sense of the present moment and its needs, while shifting the focus of current gesture format into the context of the music community. Therefore Estonian Contemporary Music Center invites two different professional creators involved in musical composition and/or interpretation into their venue and gives them free rein. As a new component of GESTURES/SITUATIONS format, a third artist from another artistic practice or field is also invited, bringing a different set of experiences, physicality, or sense of space to the process. They are all supported by dramaturge Alissa Šnaider. Participating composers and performing arts artists in the upcoming events are: Marianna Liik, Liisa Hõbepappel, Artjom Astrov, Kenn-Eerik Kannike, Liis Vares ja Maryn-Liis Rüütelmaa. 

GESTURES/SITUATIONS is not a collaborative format but a situation of risk.

It creates situations in which sound is not composed, but occurs as a consequence of bodies attempting to coordinate without agreement.

C H O R E O G R A P H Y O F T H R E S H O L D

GESTURES/SITUATIONS: LISTENING WITHOUT A SCORE

What happens to sound when there is nothing left to protect it?

GESTURES/SITUATIONS: LISTENING WITHOUT A SCORE proposes a problem rather than a format.

It stages situations in which sound is not composed, but occurs as a consequence of bodies attempting to coordinate without agreement.

There is no score, no shared language, and no obligation to produce a  work.

The project is structured around a minimal constellation of three participants and a set of gestures that function as operators of transition.

These gestures cannot be repeated or optimized; they mark thresholds rather than actions.

Listening is treated as a condition, not a skill.

Delay, misunderstanding, fatigue, and silence are not interruptions but structural elements that organize the field.

The situation is initiated and then allowed to unfold autonomously.

What is choreographed is not sound or movement, but the instability of coordination itself.

The outcome is not a performance but a residue — the trace of having remained present within an unresolved problem.

GESTURES/SITUATIONS: LISTENING WITHOUT A SCORE does not aim to redefine music.

It holds musical language in suspension in order to examine the conditions under which sound can still take place.

GESTURES/SITUATIONS operates as a portable structure rather than a local expression.

Each iteration reactivates the same problem in a different context.

The project does not translate cultures — it puts them under pressure.

FROM 5 GESTURES TO GESTURES/SITUATIONS

The current format has developed from the original “5 GESTURES TOWARDS…” series at elektron.art art hall where between 2023 and 2025 the following artist duos met: Claudia Lepik, Maxim Mjödov, Sveta Grigorjeva, Mikhail Pashchuk, Raul Keller, Kärt Koppel, Laivi Suurväli, Krõõt Juurak, Marta Vaarik, Gregor Kulla, Jaan Evart, Hendrik Kaljujärv, Riina Maidre, Marto Mägi, Kymbali Williams, Liisamari Viik, Viktoria Martjanova, Maxim Nikanorov, Kitty Florentine, Grete Rattasepp and Arolin Raudva. In total 11 editions of “5 GESTURES TOWARDS…” took place and the last one was executed in collaboration with SAAL Biennaal festival organised by Kanuti Glildi SAAL. 

The previous gestures left unresolved questions that carry over into the upcoming GESTURES/SITUATIONS. What kind of gesture is possible where forms are predetermined and resources are limited? What conditions are necessary for something new to emerge?

Based on the actions that took place, it became clear that this has evolved into a permanent yet open format for gestures - a stable yet open structure that can emerge anew whenever the space, the need, and the audience arise.

Alissa Šnaider is an artist, choreographer, dramaturge, and curator working across performance, visual practices, and directing.

Her practice moves between choreography, staging, photography, and writing. It approaches gesture not as expression, but as an operation that reorganizes attention, time, and relations between bodies. Rather than resolving forms, her work constructs situations in which presence, delay, friction, and exposure remain active.

Alissa is the initiator of Gestures / Situations — an ongoing project that develops performative situations structured around risk, non-coordination, and listening. The project functions as a portable structure, activated through minimal constellations of participants and context-specific gestures.

Her visual work extends these situations by treating the image as a residue of action rather than representation. Writing operates within her practice as a form of articulation and intervention, accompanying processes without stabilizing them.

She works internationally across artistic, curatorial, and dramaturgical contexts.

https://www.snaider.ee/2 

A public gesture is neither a finished performance nor a classical concert. It is the final moment of a ten-day process—an opportunity to witness a situation that has arisen through the interaction of three participants and that cannot be repeated in exactly the same form.

Participating artists: Marianna Liik, Liisa Hõbepappel, Artjom Astrov, Kenn-Eerik Kannike, Liis Vares, Maryn-Liis Rüütelmaa

Dramaturge: Alissa Šnaider

Graphic design: Jaan Evart

Creative communication: Maria Solei Järvet

Coproducer: Maria Hansar / Estonian Centre of Contemporary Music

Project manager: Annika Üprus

Supporters: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Tallinn, Ulysses Platform - co-funded by the European Union

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (ECEA). Neither the European Union nor ECEA can be held responsible for them.