Pour water on thyself: thus shalt thou be a fountain to the universe. (Kenneth Anger)
The twilight of the ‘Age of Aquarius’ has begun, we are experiencing a shift from technological innovations towards humanitarian concerns and collective responsibilities. The stage has turned into a watery realm – a swimming pool, a wetland, morass in which the heiresses of Ophelia try to prepare themselves for the inevitable.
The nymphs, nereids, sirens and melusines love music, are brilliant dancers, and look to a future that is uncertain and fragile. They like to lure people into the water, dragging them to the lower depths to make them look into the mirror of Venus. The true place of significance lies in the dark, has submerged and sunk to the ground. Decomposition brings the bodies up to the surface, and there they are, floating and moldering in the water to become one with nature, unless they’re found.
This oceanic landscape allusive of cultural and historical references to all manner of water creatures and drowned unknowns constitutes the stage for survival training under precarious circumstances, and for speculating on a different form of life.
Fluctuation, reflection, reproduction, healing but also violence – these are the themes around which Florentina Holzinger and her multi-disciplinary and multi-generational cast have conceived the new show at the Volksbühne – a very physical study in the psychology of water in the 21st century.
(German/English ST)
Participating artists
Melody Alia
Saioa Alvarez Ruiz
Fernando Belfiore
Stella Adriana Bergmann
Inga Busch
Renée Copraij
Jens Crull
Sophie Duncan
Fibi Eyewalker
Paige A. Flash
Moira Garee
Greta Grip
Max Heesen
Florentina Holzinger
Florentina Holzinger (Konzept & Regie)
Golda Kaden
Fiene Lydia Kaever
Izzy Kleiner
Nikola Knežević
Johanna Kobusch
Annina Machaz
Anne Meeussen
Elin Nordin
Xana Novais
Netti Nüganen
Sara Ostertag
Urška Preis
Michele Rizzo
Zora Schemm
Stefan Schneider
Lea Schünemann
Rebecca Sickmüller
Nike Strunk
Dana Tucker
Katharina Wallisch
Laila Yoalli Waschke
Zoë Willens
Florentina Holzinger (Autor/in)
Paige A. Flash (Musik)
Urška Preis (Musik)
Stefan Schneider (Musik)
Renée Copraij (Dramaturgie)
Fernando Belfiore (Dramaturgie)
Michele Rizzo (Dramaturgie)
Johanna Kobusch (Dramaturgie Volksbühne)