Tennis is a choreographic study by Anne Juren, developed within the framework of APAP (2006). In this work, the choreographer collaborates with linguist Fouad Asfour and dramaturg Jeroen Peeters to explore the intersections of sport and dance by engaging professional tennis players in a choreographic process. The result is a performance that reveals the invisible structures of athletic movement—not as competition, but as a poetic and embodied reflection.

The performance emerged from an intensive week-long collaboration between the artists and tennis players Florian Eck and Ullrich Hoppe. Departing from conventional training, the choreographic approach systematically deconstructed and recomposed the movement sequences of tennis. The players were challenged to break from their habitual motor patterns and instead adapt to a choreographic logic. This shift provoked fundamental questions: How does bodily perception transform when movement is no longer driven by the objective of scoring points, but by an aesthetic structure?

What occurs in the seconds following the conscious planning of a physical action? Anne Juren’s Tennis delves into the invisible processes between intention and execution. In both sport and dance, it is not only visible gestures that guide the body, but also mental imagery that shapes performance. Players visualize movements to sharpen focus—yet what happens when these imagined patterns collide with a choreographic framework? The performance demonstrates how even minor modifications in movement can redirect attention to specific body parts, generating new physical and mental states.

Tennis premiered on August 17, 2006, on the tennis court "an der Schaubühne" in Berlin. The choice of location was deliberate: the public space of a tennis court, typically a site of athletic rivalry, became a laboratory for reimagining movement. For the audience, this created an unusual experience—they witnessed tennis not as a contest, but as a choreographic score. The players, in turn, found themselves navigating a role oscillating between athleticism and artistic interpretation.