Off Europa 2024 – Main program
I Psychi Tis Antigonis (Η ψυχή της Αντιγόνης / The Soul of Antigone)
22th of April // 8 p.m. // Leipzig // I Psychi Tis Antigonis // Theatre // PLAVO Pozorište At the centre of this impressively intense evening of theatre are Virginia Woolf’s thoughts on feminism and pacifism, crossed with Sophocles‘ ancient model play Antigone. The author’s ideas collide with prevailing power structures and the current state of the world. Yet Creon’s permanently insistent son and an omnipresent sign language interpreter give hope for a future of humanity.
Guest performance from Belgrade, Serbia. Performed in English.
Mining Stories
23th of April // 8 p.m. // Leipzig // I Mining Stories // Recherche Lecture Performance // Silke Huysmans & Hannes Dereere In 2015, a serious environmental disaster occured near the town of Mariana. A dam burst at the reservoir of an iron ore mine, releasing a toxic mudslide that buried several villages. Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere travelled to Brazil to research the disaster and its consequences. Their theatrical processing, a score of original sound bites from witness reports, economic observations and reflections on the categorisation of memories, paints a precise picture of the disaster. Performance in Portuguese, English & Dutch with German surtitles.
Old Pond
24th of April // 8 p.m. // Leipzig // I Old Pond // Tanz // Zsuzsa Rózsavölgyi + Company (Ungarn) „Old Pond“, a wonderfully fluidly danced performance by Hungarian choreographer Zsusa Rózsavölgyi, is about living spaces, (co-)existence and survival. In a spinning top of eternal life, dancers become creatures of all kinds. They swim, row, jump; occasionally agitated, but always movingly harmonious in an imaginary body of water that is flooded with light. A kind of utopian society draft, certainly not created in Hungary for no reason – in the protected space of an island of art. No language barrier.
3 Minuten – Fallout mit Katze und Gesang
24th of April // 8 p.m. // Leipzig // 3 Minuten – Fallout mit Katze und Gesang // Puppet theatre // MindTheGap (Susi Claus) feat. Rike Schuberty A rural idyll. A small house and two people. They sit to eat, they listen to the news, they go to sleep and then get up again. Two people, completely on their own as the performance progresses, caught between shock and repression, powerless in the midst of world political events. „Drei Minuten“/“3 Minutes” is a cross-disciplinary theatre evening about the nuclear emergency. With puppets, live music, video art and radio play elements. Performed in German.
COLORI
25th of April // 8 p.m.// Dresden // COLORI // Dance //Fine Kwiatkowski, Willehad Grafenhorst, Gandolfo Pagano COLORI ties in with the film „dahinter liegt das unumkehrbare“ and the performance „unerneuerbar / irrinnovabile“. The film is dominated by beautiful images of „probably imminent losses“, the performance on the other hand, adresses the destruction of human and animal habitats. In COLORI, beauty and threat manifest themselves in a circle of colours, shapes, sound and dance, making the warming of the atmosphere and the associated rise in sea levels an intuitive visual and acoustic experience. No language barrier.
BLOOM
25th of April // 9 p.m.// Dresden // BLOOM // Dance, DJ-Performance /Jennifer Dubreuil Houthemann BLOOM, a hybrid of dancer and cyborg, is the other, the stranger, the curious, an object of fantasy and artificial intelligence, but also a true predator. An emissary, a messenger; with a physicality that fascinates with its strangeness. Inspired by the neo-futurist movement, the creature explores the tension between the old and the new, attempting to adapt to its surroundings and gain independence. No language barrier.
SOLIDARITY!
26th of April // 11 a.m. // Leipzig // SOLIDARITY! // Dance // Company Rebecca Weingartner Two dancers and a musician. Their backgrounds and biographies are as complex as they are different, but they all know the feeling of not belonging. On stage, they challenge each other to be courageous and overcome their own boundaries. To succeed in this, they need active support – from each other and from the audience. Together they form a choir of moving bodies, a sounding, cracking, singing ensemble that makes itself heard for stories that are otherwise untold. Performed in German.
SOLIDARITY!
26th of April // 6 p.m. // Leipzig // SOLIDARITY! // Dance // Company Rebecca Weingartner Two dancers and a musician. Their backgrounds and biographies are as complex as they are different, but they all know the feeling of not belonging. On stage, they challenge each other to be courageous and overcome their own boundaries. To succeed in this, they need active support – from each other and from the audience. Together they form a choir of moving bodies, a sounding, cracking, singing ensemble that makes itself heard for stories that are otherwise untold. Performed in German.
Old Pond
26th of April // 8 p.m. // Dresden // I Old Pond // Tanz // Zsuzsa Rózsavölgyi + Company (Ungarn) „Old Pond“, a wonderfully fluidly danced performance by Hungarian choreographer Zsusa Rózsavölgyi, is about living spaces, (co-)existence and survival. In a spinning top of eternal life, dancers become creatures of all kinds. They swim, row, jump; occasionally agitated, but always movingly harmonious in an imaginary body of water that is flooded with light. A kind of utopian society draft, certainly not created in Hungary for no reason – in the protected space of an island of art. No language barrier.
DEVOURER
26th of April // 8 p.m.// Chemnitz // DEVOURER // Dance Performance /Alica Minar & colleagues DEVOURER, “the devourer,” exists only to have. In the almost hour-long production, Alica Minar develops a character whose initially naive joy in finding and collecting simple, black balls turns into unbridled greed, and who at some point seems to use any means to satisfy it. Every ingestion, every swallow reveals more and more that it is our very own human nature that we are watching. Performed in English with German surtitles.
Vzduch (Luft)
27th of April // 8 p.m.// Leipzig // Vzduch (Air) // Dance Performance /TABULA RASA The performance “Vzduch” (Air) by the Prague-based artist collective TABULA RASA takes the audience on a journey to a land full of dragons and other mysteries; into a highly artificial theatrical space, equipped with strange objects and disguises, seemingly alien sounds and rituals, irritations and hazards. A playful, magically alienated evening of theatre that criticises the actions or inaction of Western people as well as a general thoughtlessness in dealing with resources and the natural environment. Performance in Czech with English surtitles.
3 Minuten – Fallout mit Katze und Gesang
27th of April // 8 p.m. // Dresden // 3 Minuten – Fallout mit Katze und Gesang // Puppet theatre // MindTheGap (Susi Claus) feat. Rike Schuberty A rural idyll. A small house and two people. They sit to eat, they listen to the news, they go to sleep and then get up again. Two people, completely on their own as the performance progresses, caught between shock and repression, powerless in the midst of world political events. „Drei Minuten“/“3 Minutes” is a cross-disciplinary theatre evening about the nuclear emergency. With puppets, live music, video art and radio play elements. Performed in German.
COLORI
27th of April // 8 p.m.// Chemnitz // COLORI // Dance //Fine Kwiatkowski, Willehad Grafenhorst, Gandolfo Pagano COLORI ties in with the film „dahinter liegt das unumkehrbare“ and the performance „unerneuerbar / irrinnovabile“. The film is dominated by beautiful images of „probably imminent losses“, the performance on the other hand, adresses the destruction of human and animal habitats. In COLORI, beauty and threat manifest themselves in a circle of colours, shapes, sound and dance, making the warming of the atmosphere and the associated rise in sea levels an intuitive visual and acoustic experience. No language barrier.
BLOOM
27th of April // 9 p.m.// Chemnitz // BLOOM // Dance, DJ-Performance /Jennifer Dubreuil Houthemann BLOOM, a hybrid of dancer and cyborg, is the other, the stranger, the curious, an object of fantasy and artificial intelligence, but also a true predator. An emissary, a messenger; with a physicality that fascinates with its strangeness. Inspired by the neo-futurist movement, the creature explores the tension between the old and the new, attempting to adapt to its surroundings and gain independence. No language barrier.
The End
28th of April // 8 p.m.// Leipzig // The End // Performance Theatre Dance /Bert & Nasi “The End” by the artist duo Bertrand Lesca & Nasi Voutsas from Manchester mercilessly looks into the future, that of our planet, but also that of its protagonists. In a compellingly simple stage constellation – enriched with scraps of encounters and episodes, small gestures and rituals – an artistic friendship, a partnership is told that is wonderful/great/moving and yet, like all life in this world, cannot be held on to. Performance in English.
Wenn Deutschland Zeit hat – Mit Tauben Schach spielen
28th of April // 8 p.m.// Dresden // Wenn Deutschland Zeit hat // Theatre /Theater M21 With its documentary-fictional piece development, Theater M21 is attempting to approach the increasing spread of hate speech on the Internet in a theatrical way. The ensemble allows those affected to have their say and enters into a close combat with the visual and linguistic space that blows towards you on relevant platforms on the World Wide Web. The troll plays just as much a role as the effects of Instagram/WhatsApp/TikTok. The piece describes the unique behaviour of surfing and tolerating on the Internet – and gives shape and face to liking, denouncing, and shitstorms. Performance in German.
3 Minuten – Fallout mit Katze und Gesang
28th of April // 8 p.m. // Chemnitz // 3 Minuten – Fallout mit Katze und Gesang // Puppet theatre // MindTheGap (Susi Claus) feat. Rike Schuberty A rural idyll. A small house and two people. They sit to eat, they listen to the news, they go to sleep and then get up again. Two people, completely on their own as the performance progresses, caught between shock and repression, powerless in the midst of world political events. „Drei Minuten“/“3 Minutes” is a cross-disciplinary theatre evening about the nuclear emergency. With puppets, live music, video art and radio play elements. Performed in German.
