Eve II or The Narrative of an Attempt

Photo (c) Team Eve II

The performance began as a project at the School of Drama of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece. More specifically, it is a directing project with the supervision of directing professor Michael Marmarinos, who contributed artistically. The story is narrated around the questions that an existential void raises, and the human need to handle or fight this void.

“How old am I? Sometimes ten, sometimes five, sometimes twenty years old… When am I today? When am I yesterday? Does today still exist? I float. Where is my body? Where did I leave it? Is this death? But I know that I am not dead. I know that I constantly dream. I know that I still exist.”

The dramaturgy of the scenography follows the story being told. The performance begins with the void of an empty stage. The void of the stage starts to fill, alongside the story. First with one actress, a chair, some papers. Then another actor comes. By the end, chairs and papers overflow the stage but one actor is lying flat on the ground.

The performance is based on the novel “When I was a work of art” by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Schmitt’s philosophical text is about the journey from ignorance to knowledge, from the feeling of nothingness to the visualization of the world as the dramatic persona is transformed into a work of art.

The basic idea of the directing is the narrative of the story itself. The engagement of the dramatic time with the narrative time.

Acting with or without a mask, involving within the narrative the other actor, the light, the music, the sound, the scenery.

A woman narrates the void that was leading her life. Feeling the void inside her, she narrates how she attempted a suicide and how a man changed her mind by promising her a new life, through the transformation from her humanity into an artwork.

A narration that switches between narrative time and dramatic time.

A narration that sometimes crashes dramatic and narrative space.

The attempt at a simple scenography and the way the stage is transforming from one space to another represents the hero herself. Scenography and acting are always inseparably connected. Everything is disassembled and reassembled, appears and disappears. Four basic materials: chair, paper, mask, and costume.

Team

Yannis Didaskalou (Director, Set Design, Lighting Design, Dramaturgy) was born in Athens in 1986. He has been involved with theater since 2008, taking part in university theater groups, theater workshops, and seminars. He studied workshops such as Theater Mask, Physical Theater, Body, and Ancient Drama etc. at Olympus Theatre of Gloucester, in association with the National Theatre of England. Now, he is studying directing and acting at the School of Drama – Faculty of Fine Arts at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is also teaching acting at Parsifal Laboratory of Theatre, and has directed prize-winning performances: “The story will always be the same, nothing is going to disappoint the story”, performance at ΤEDx University of Macedonia, performances at the drama school of National Theatre Of Northern Greece, etc. He has performed as an actor and dancer at Venice Open Stage Festival. He has attended seminars such as Ancient Drama and Politics, organized by the National Theatre of Northern Greece. In 2014, he founded an experimental drama theater group in Thessaloniki named “Apo ton pempto stixo kiolas faltsoi” (faltsoi theatre group), participating in the Bridges #SKG festival in Thessaloniki, with a performance named “Our inner tragedy”, under his direction. In 2019, this performance based on ancient drama plays was on tour in Greece, at festivals, and in ancient theaters.

Felice Topi (Actor, Dramaturgy) was born in Thessaloniki.

She studied computer science at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2013) and acting at the drama school “dilos” (2017).

She has attended workshops such as “Ancient Drama” with Lydia Koniordou, organized by the National Theater of Greece, and training workshops by Theodoros Terzopoulos.

She is currently living and working as a professional actress mainly in Athens.

Her last theatrical work was “Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer” by B. Brecht, directed for the National Theatre of Greece by Simos Kakalas, which production also participated in the Festival of the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe in Cluj (November 2019).

Hotel Kummer

Photo (c) – Team Hotel Kummer

Hotel Kummer is a participatory installation, wishing to look into the gaps remaining where life no longer takes place. Portraying traces left by women taken away, left by women whose lives were taken from them, Hotel Kummer investigates into the remaining silence. It is the silence of crimes, the silence of victimhood, the silence of history. Hotel Kummer shines light where darkness has taken over; offers speech where muteness reigns, discovers tracks doomed for the void.

Team

Daliah Ziper, documentary artist, born 1986 in Frankfurt, Germany. Finalized her studies as Meisterschülerin in the Film Class at University of the Arts Berlin (2017) and MA in Narrative Environments at Central Saint Martins in London (2011). Her works have been screened at film festivals as well as institutions such as the Deutsche Filmmuseum, published in the WomenCinemakers Magazine, and developed during artist residencies of the Goethe-Institut in Tetovo (Macedonia), Marseille (France) and Bangalore (India).

www.daliahziper.com

Liat Fassberg, Dramaturg* and Writer*. Born 1985 in Jerusalem, Israel. MA in Dramaturgy at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Fellowship at the UniT writing program ForumText 2019–2020. Fellowship at the Gargonza Arts prize for Literature 2020 in Toscana. Fassberg’s debut piece „Etwas Kommt Mir Bekannt Vor“ won the Retzhofer Dramapreis 2017, accompanied by a premiere at the Wiener Burgtheater 2018.

www.liatfass.wordpress.com

Human and Non-Human

Photo (c) – Team Human and Non-Human

In theater we examine the world with different tools than scientists. We examine it through ourselves. Since we are so close to being robots, we decided to start programming humans. Does elevate_45[leg_left] and move30[leg_right] let us go further? Where to seek the answers if scientists don’t have them?
I am a human being. I am an animal. I am a cyborg. Am I?
Which of those statements is the center of our being?
Which of those statements is inalienable?

Team

Agata Koszulińska
Director, writer, performer, co-founder of artistic group Close Collective.

A student of Drama Directing at the Academy of Theatre Arts in Warsaw, holder of a Goethe Institute scholarship for young artists. Participant of the innovative program Laboratory of New Theater in New Theater in Cracow. As a result of this project she wrote and directed her theatrical début. “Opportunity”; performance about the bravest martian rover. Currently working as director of VR performances and animations.

Mateusz Korsak
Graduated from Polish National Theatre School, Acting faculty (Cracow). Theater and film actor, VR actor, performer, 3D designer, VR designer. Newborn musician, home-grown poet and rapper. Lover of rock climbing, peanut butter, and cycling. He delivered the famous Elon Musk speech to the first interplanetary society on Mars. A participant of the pilot program – “Man to be a cyborg 2020”.

Amadeusz Nosal
Playwriting, dramaturgy, visual arts, graphic design
Graduated from Polish National Theatre School, Directing faculty. Participated in productions honored with numerous awards for best debut, youth plays, puppet theatre, including plays produced for children with hearing impairment. Works with film and video-art as independent narrative language inside dramatic works. Done texts, dramaturgy, and video for plays in all major polish theaters.

InSomnus

Photo – (c) Jorge Kuri Neumann

A scenic project based on the idea of sound as scenography. A play where the boundaries of real and imagination are questioned. INSOMNUS is a theatrical sound scenic experience: a labyrinth sound as an escape from our mazes and inner rubble. And empty stage that gives way to heady, dreamlike situations bordering on madness, where sound and imagination draw inner freedom as the one and only reality.

Team

Aaron Govea: Author and actor.

Scenic artist. Master of Arts – Physical Theatre at Sistema Universitario della Svizzera Italiana – Accademia Teatro Dimitri. Actor from the National School of Theatrical Arts, Mexico. At varying times he has been awared by the National Fund for Culture and Arts in Mexico and IBERESCENA. His plays have been part of different international festivals in America and Europe.

Maud Giboudeau: Artistic collaboration.

Movement theatre artist educated at the Accademia Teatro Dimitri Switzerland, and as a circus artist (tight wire specialist) by Arc en Cirque, France. She has worked with Volker Hesse (Switzerland) and she has been part of the social programm “Summerschool de la Palestinian Circus School en Palestina”.

Facebook: Teatro NARANJAZUL

Project supported by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts MEXICO

It depends

Photo (c) – Team It Depends

The performer is female, the puppet constructed male, almost larger than life. Their relationship could be an intimate play, a game in which dominance and devotion, attraction and rejection, commitment and flight chase one another. But that is all illusion. This puppet is a suspended statue, a man-shaped pendulum. Its posture and movement are dictated by the laws of physics. When the performer tries to act on the puppet with her own strength, she is only confronting herself with her own expectations, hopes, and frustrations. Only action, no reaction. The puppet is her eternal feedback loop, the image of absence. Its nature is lack.

Team

Helga Lázár (Concept, Design/Construction, Performance) is a Hungarian artist working primarily in puppet theater. She studied at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest and the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.

Since completing her degree in 2017, she has been living in Stuttgart and working throughout Germany, Hungary, and Serbia.

She is active as a performer, director, and scenic designer, and since 2018 has been a guest lecturer at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest, where she began her doctoral work in 2020.

Domokos Kovács (Choreography) is a Hungarian actor, performer, and choreographer. He completed his studies at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest in 2017.

His work focusses primarily on the relationship between puppet theater and physical theater. He lives in Budapest, where he has been guest lecturer at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest since 2019.

David Schuckart (Music) is a freelance musician, composer, and producer in the intersection of accoustic, electronic, and digital media, as well as an afficionado of obscure words.

In 2018, he completed his bachelor’s degree in jazz piano at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.

Membrâme

Photo (c) – Team Membrâme

Membrâme is an interdisciplinary creation which aims to give the same importance to sound and movement by exploring the links between those two means of expression. We are both actors and storytellers, telling tales of sound and gesture, which creates an atypical atmosphere in the piece.

The dramaturgy is built on four different atmospheres that change throughout the piece. The first one opens on a scene in which we repeat a perfectly synchronized sequence of movements and sounds, suggesting a personal confinement in a senseless daily life. Then we dive into a world of different perceptions. Time grows longer, the body becomes mysterious and abstract, sound starts travelling in space. In the third part, silence appears. The sound of the body, still abstract, comes alive and turns into a human form, with an explosion of energy. Finally, it’s the calm after the storm. Lightness settles down. We are together in space, searching, avoiding and discovering each other.

We aren’t musicians or dancers anymore, we are.

The piece is a demonstration of the membranes of the soul, that hide the profound mysteries of mankind. This vulnerable interpretation represents each and everyone’s own sensitivity. When does the protection of the inner self become a prison, transforming humans into a crystallized body, in which the sap doesn’t circulate anymore? Where lies the limit between emotional balance and inscrutability? In contrast, what about the membranes that are excessively permeable and lead humans to feel overcome by their emotions?

The piece seeks a balance that is constantly moving. Our aim is to inspire everyone to look for a balanced connection to themselves and to their environment. In a society that places human emotional needs on one side and values an extreme connection to technology on the other, we think that the theme of this membrane between the soul and what surrounds it deserves a deep questioning.

Membranes are the organic tissues that seperate and connect two different parts of the body, as a reflection of the boundary between our internal and external world. Through them, emotional and sensory informations come and go, internally flavouring our experiences. Depending on the membrane’s permeabilty, substance can move from one part to another. Some membranes can even be impermeable. Thus, Membrâme asks us: What kind of connection do we have to our inner being? How thick are our membranes? Are they protecting us or confining us?

Team

Laura Dicembrino, Bern University of the Arts (HKB), born in 1996, is a contemporary dancer. In 2012, she starts studying at the Centre de Formation Professionnel des Arts in Geneva and receives a Federal Diploma of Vocational Education and Training in contemporary dance.

In 2015, she dances with the Neopost Foofwa company for two pieces. In 2016, she starts a Bachelor in Music and Movement at the HKB. During her studies, she works with the choreographer and director Joachim Schlömer. This leads her to continue her partnership with musicians. She then creates the Litnerak company and the project Membrâme with the percussionist Corentin Barro. At the same time, in 2019, she is hired by a company called Le Lokart, directed by Mehdi Berdai and Héloïse Marcacci.

Corentin Barro, HKB, born in 1996 in Geneva, starts learning percussion with Nicolas Curti, then continues with Damien Darioli at the school of music in Geneva. In 2019, he receives his graduation certificate (Bachelor in classical percussion at the Bern University of the Arts). His teachers were Jochen Schorer, Christian Hartmann, and Brian Archinal. He continues in a Master of Composition Creative & Practice at the HKB with Brian Archinal and Simon Steen- Andersen. Then, he takes master classe with Stefan Prins, composer invited to the HKB. He creates and takes part of several projects, such as the Romanesco duo with the percussionist Romane Bouffioux (close to the contemporary repertoire and the musical theater), the Litnerak company (with the dancer Laura Dicembrino), Octante-et-Onze (quarter de Jazz-omnivore-atmosphérique), and Tzupati Orchestra (a Balkan music group).

Youtube-Channel

In The Solitude

Photo (c) – Radovan

In the Solitude is a director’s variation on Bernard-Marie Koltés play “In the Solitude of Cotton Fields.” The director reinterprets this philosophical play and its desire to discuss – through a personal prism – themes such as alienation, joy, relationships, contact, and conformity.

The play, as well as the variation progressively follows a developing relationship between two men in a tense trade/deal situation. Dialogue is reduced to logical lines such as desire, death, value, love. The play closely follows the character transformations of Dealer and Client. Their mutual differences become insignificant, fall apart in the end and thus they become equal partners for dialogue, trade, relationship.

Team

František Maňák  graduated from Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno in 2018 from the Drama acting class led by Lukáš Rieger. At the moment he is a freelancer with a part time contract with Slovácké divadlo. Apart from theater projects he also participates in short movies, series, recording voiceovers, hosting shows, proms and competitions.

Mark Kristian Hochman finished his studies at Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno in 2018 at the Drama acting class lead by Lukáš Rieger. He is currently working full-time in one of the most famous Czech theatres – HaDivadlo in Brno.

Martin Hodoň graduated from Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno in 2019 where he studied Directing and Dramaturgy, under the mentorship of prof. Josef Kovalčuk. At that time he started doctoral studies at the Slovak Academy of Science, department Theatre Studies in Bratislava. His artistic work is based on the mutual relationship between performance and performing art.

Michal HōR Horáček is a multimedia artist. The range of his work includes theater and film projects, lighting installations and extensive photography. He presented and exhibited his work at solo exhibitions in New York, Berlin, Barcelona and many other places. He is also creator and co-creator of a number of theater and multimedia projects.

On the first night we looked at maps |

LOS ALEMANES DEL VOLGA

Photography (c) Jana Kiesser

Upon a table: Photographs, maps, and a hymn book. The audience sits around the table in a circle, maté tea is offered. A gay couple are the hosts. The topic is the history of the Volga Germans, 18th-century emigres to Russia who, a century later, continued their travels on the American continent. In such a homely atmosphere, the past is explored in order to discover a new future in which queer heritage becomes possible.

Team

Wenzel U. Vöcks (Research, Text, Performance) studied theater sciences and art history at the Free University of Berlin and at the Università Roma Tre in Rome. As director and assistant director, he has worked at houses such as the Komische Oper Berlin, the Teatro alla Scala, the Opera Vlaanderen, and the Opéra Comique in Paris. His directorial debut, a production of Handel’s “Aci, Galatea e Polifemo” was staged in numerous Berlin clubs. Since the fall of 2019, he has been concentrating on his independent artistic work.

www.wenzel-u-voecks.com

Federico Schwindt (Research, Text, Performance) studied theater directing at the the Universidad Nacional de las Artes Buenos Aires. He began his career in the Buenos Aires independent scene, where staged both works by well-known authors (such as Frederico Garcia Lorca’s “Blood Wedding”at the Teatro del Viejo Palermo) and his own pieces (including among others “Seguridad” at the Teatro El excêntrico de la 18). Since moving to Berlin in 2015, he has dedicated himself to performative research and productions of his own texts (such as “Hawaiian Fragments” at the Acker Stadt Palast, and “Artes Moriendi – Ways of Dying” at Berlin’s 2018 Performing Arts Festival).

www.federicoschwindt.com

In Cooperation with TATWERK | Performative Forschung (Berlin)

Räuber von Schiller

Photo (c) – Team Räuber von Schiller

With his passionate debut about the self- destruction of a family, Schiller became a legend.

A quarter of a millennium later, Mark Tumba and Nicolas Sidiropulos create their own version of Schiller’s masterpiece.

It is a story about belonging, love, egoism, freedom—a story from Germany before Germany existed—a story told by two young, brutal, and good-looking actors, exploring themselves.

Team

Mark Tumba was born 1995 on Zanzibar Island to Tanzanian-German parents. 1999 Mark moved to the city of Hagen (Germany). During his school years, he played on stage of the local theater several times. Since 2017, he has been studying acting at the HMTM Hanover. 2019 he won the award for “best male actor” for his performance in “Räuber von Schiller” at the international theater festival FIESAD in Rabat (Morocco). 2019/20 he is part of the studio ensemble at the Hanover State Theater.

Nicolas Sidiropulos was born in Brussels in 1988 to Greek parents, then raised in Tübingen (Germany). Performed in theater projects in school and played on the stage of the Zimmertheater Tübingen. Since 2017, Nicolas has been studying acting at HMTM Hanover. 2019 he won the award for “best male actor” for his performance in “Räuber von Schiller” at the international theater festival FIESAD in Rabat (Morocco). Since January 2020, he has been taking a semester abroad at CNSAD in Paris.

Senke

Photo (c) – Sarah Degenhardt

Senke is an audiovisual 2-channel installation conceived for a face-to-face situation. Whereas the two projected sides of the room are in constant movement, the other sides form the fixed limitations of the room.

Blue and white curtains and abstracted surfaces push themselves into the frame of the projected image from right, left, above, or below, a slow and precise choreography that opens and closes the room. The sound, which consists largely of recordings of waterfalls, gives evidence of different constitutions of spatiality that are being interjected into the exhibition space.

Visually, a blue curtain serves as source material for the videos, in some sections disfigured beyond recognition.

The collaboration of image and sound evokes the question of distance and a space behind. The exhibition space is constantly being transformed in its dimensions, its atmosphere and its density, floating in a state between undefined vastness and sharp closure.

Team

Sarah Degenhardt (Concept, Image, Sound, Cut)  born 1992 in Memmingen, Germany, was raised in the german region Allgäu auf and studied fine arts in Karlsruhe, La Réunion and Paris.

Experiences with landscapes, nature and their impact on humans and their habitus are the base and foundation of her works.

In her working process, she abstracts these experiences into dense, reduced images that are manifested in audiovisual multichannel installations, paper art and sculptures. She always works with the architectural constitution of the exhibition space, which is either found or sparking the process, or is transformed specially for her work.

Space, rooms, reference points and the moment when everything shifts are elements that have always interested her in her goal to lead the spectators into a glitch in the usual order of space, a glitch that follows its own, evershifting laws.

https://sarahdegenhardt.com/