Four people, setting out. They are still young and though every one of them is carrying his own history, his own dreams and experiences, hopes and deceptions. They are on their way, people on their trails through a barren world. Displaced and looking for shelter, prisoners of their own, without orientation, exhausted. Often their advancing seems to be without any sense: What is their destination? Is there any destination at all? What keeps them going are their memories and their desires. And then there still is – against all probability, despite conflicts and competition – the fractious power that emerges from empathy.
The editta braun company presents a young team in a play that seems to have fallen out of time. A background of migration may be suspected, the atmosphere evoking eastern countries, the Balkans, Asia Minor, in a vague past or even in future, on a depopulated continent. Because everything is happening in front of impressing pictures which have been taken out of Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s documentary Homo Sapiens showing deserted industry landscapes, traces of a perished civilisation where nature has gained the upper hand for a long time already.
Against this background empathy is not an expression of noble human kindness but vital: The four are depending on each other – like all of us are nowadays in a world that has grown small end extremely cross-linked.
“Surrounded by a team of artists from Poland, Slovenia, Mozambique, Austria, France and Germany, I send four people on a journey. Although these people are obviously homeless, it is not about migration: We examine the group dynamic processes of a bunch of people who move through an apocalyptic world. And they manage that no one gets lost.
The films of the Greek Theo Angelopoulos (The Travelling Players) have enchanted me since the early 1980s and remain anchored in me ever since. I perceive his pictorial language “choreographically” and, in its diverse association depth, is close to the arts of dance.
Then I discover the acclaimed science-fiction documentary Homo Sapiens of the Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter, who takes us into a world without people, yet landscapes with human remains. Industrial ruins, abandoned human habitats, recaptured by nature, overgrown. Powerful images.” (Editta Braun)
Dance: Paula Dominici, Kamil Mrozowski, Jerca Rožnik Novak, Ornilia Ubisse
Choreographed and Directed by: Editta Braun
Music design: Thierry Zaboitzeff
Film clips: Nikolaus Geyerhalter (Homo Sapiens)
Light design : Thomas Hinterberger
Dramaturgy: Gerda Poschmann-Reichenau
Choreographic assistance: Anna Maria Müller
Co-Regie: Arturas Valudskis