Untitled Duet (the storm called progress) (2020–2022) is a performance by Tosh Basco with dancer Josh Johnson along with DJ and sound composer Ashland Mines, experimenting with techniques of improvisation and pressing against a linear unfolding of history.
Untitled Duet (the storm called progress) is both an excerpt and expansion of Tosh Basco’s work with the collaborative group Moved by the Motion. It takes Paul Klee’s drawing Angelus Novus from 1920 as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of improvisation as it relates to what Walter Benjamin might call the chaos of history. Klee’s angel is propelled backwards without foresight “into the future to which his back is turned”, facing the piling wreckage and catastrophe of the past. Against this dense background, Basco imagines an expansive performance that works with distinct forms: a durational composition of shifting relations across sound, music and movement.
The performance celebrated its premiere as part of Rituals of Care (2020) and returns to the Gropius Bau in conjunction with the group exhibition.
Gropius Bau, 2022. Courtesy: Tosh Basco Photo: Inès Manai