Helmi Vent, born in Hamburg, Germany, studied art education and chamber music as well as sports education. She has careers in international competitions in rhythmic sports gymnastics (German Champion) and as a concert performing violinist. She founded and directed the “Forum für experimentellen Tanz – Duisburg”. In 1983 she was appointed as university professor for Experimental Space-Sound-Body-Theatre at the Mozarteum University Salzburg from where she retired in 2013.
In 1983 she founded LIA – Lab Inter Arts, initially at the Mozarteum University, since 2013 as an independent international
platform for crossover-projects in various artistic and cultural fields. LIA is open to interested people from all cultural
and artistic fields. In the performance-oriented laboratory workshops, projects on various themes are developed
together with the participants through improvisation processes. The participants are given incentives to bring in their
artistic potential both in the current specific project and in an interdisciplinary cultural context. The basis of the project
development work is the body as a sounding board – seen as an integrative interface between all kinds of reciprocal
communication. LIA links its artistic practice with accompanying seminars, in which transcultural philosophy, performance
studies and cultural studies are examined and discussed.
LIA ensures the sustainability on the basis of systematic video-documentation. Selected phases of the process, from the initial explorations to the final performance, are edited and published. In the center of the research is the development of an aesthetic profile of LIA’s SpaceSoundBody-Theater. Furthermore there are those working methods on the research agenda which initiate and promote evolutionary and communicative processes, particularly in cross cultural projects. With the Lab Inter Arts-Projects Helmi Vent connects Film Documentary Production, Arts Based Research, and Applied Humanities.
Vent conceptualised and built up the audio-video media section at the University Mozarteum and created over more than 30 years a Video & Film Archive based on the LIA research. 2013 Helmi Vent received the “Ars docendi-Staatspreis” (state award) for excellent teaching in the category “Innovative Teaching Concepts” at the public Austrian universities.
Selected publications:
- „Statement: Performanceorientierte Projektarbeit“ In: Pasuchin, Iwan (Hg.): Intermediale künstlerische Bildung. Kunst-, Musik- und Medienpädagogik im Dialog. Kopaed, München 2007, S. 63-69.
- „Performanceorientierte Projektarbeit im Kontext intermedialer künstlerischer Bildung am Beispiel der TanzMusikTheaterWerk- statt der Universität Mozarteum Salzburg“ In: Pasuchin, Iwan (Hg.): Intermediale künstlerische Bildung. Kunst-, Musik- und Medienpäd- agogik im Dialog. Kopaed, München 2007, S. 105-111.
- „Spiel-Arten und Ereignisparameter im experimentellen Musiktheater am Beispiel einer TanzMusikTheaterWerkstatt“ In: Klein, Gabriele/Sting, Wolfgang (Hg.): Performance. Positionen zur zeitgenössischen szenischen Kunst. Transcript, Bielefeld 2005, S. 147-163
- „Performance – Facetten von Lebensentwürfen“ In: Bastian, Hans Günther/Kreutz, Gunter: Musik und Humanität. Schott, Mainz 2003, S. 89-106..
Selected filmography:
- Hätte Hätte Fahrradkette. Ein Performance-Labor (2016) • 30 Jahre – Wo kämen wir hin? (2013)
- Kellertheater (2010-12)
- Lisa Sokolov, New York: Embodied VoiceWork (2010)
- City Walks Mumbai (2010)
- Wort-Klang-Körper-Essays (2002)
- Willst zu meinen Liedern Deine Leier drehn? (1995)