Grace Schwindt: Only a Free Individual Can Create a Free Society

London-based German artist Grace Schwindt presents a new film at Tramway, Only a Free Individual Can Create a Free Society in which she revisits discussions witnessed during her childhood, surrounded by radical leftwing individuals in Frankfurt, Germany. A text appears in various forms throughout the film, based on an interview with a former activist who took part in the student movement in Germany in the 60s and 70s. During the interview, she questions how freedom was, and is, understood, who has access to it and what political and social structures need to be in place to create a free society.

Dancers inhabiting a series of sets recite the interview while performing a precisely constructed choreography. The score denotes a strict rhythm between stillness and movement, in which the body is positioned through a precise relationship to space, other bodies, objects, speech and images.

Sets, props, costume, lighting, sound and camera movement come together to form a melodic composition where the script functions as a score and each element of the film forms part of a choreographic schema.