Productions
- Foto: Tom Dachs
- Foto: Nasser Hashemi
- Foto: Tom Dachs
- Foto: Nasser Hashemi
- Foto: Tom Dachs
- Foto: Nasser Hashemi
What is Left
The brutal beauty of frontality and the everyday social fashionwalks of this world.
Past dates
16.11.2024 – ON THE EDGE Festival | Theater am Werk im Kabelwerk, Wien
15.11.2024 – ON THE EDGE Festival | Theater am Werk im Kabelwerk, Wien
10.10.2024 – (Rh)einfach Fest! | WerksHalle, TanzFaktur Köln
09.10.2024 – (Rh)einfach Fest! | WerksHalle, TanzFaktur Köln
16.04.2024 – Tanzland | Ernst-Barlach-Theater, Güstrow
14.04.2024 – Tanzland | Stadttheater Herford
29.05.2023 – CircusDanceFestival | TanzFaktur Werkshalle, Köln
28.05.2023 – CircusDanceFestival | TanzFaktur Werkshalle, Köln
31.03.2023 – Jacksons Lane, London (UK)
30.03.2023 – Jacksons Lane, London (UK)
25.03.2023 – Circomedia - St. Paul’s Church, Bristol (UK)
24.03.2023 – Circomedia - St. Paul’s Church, Bristol (UK)
20.03.2023 – The Lowry, Salford (UK)
25.03.2022 – IMPACTZONE | HfMT, Köln (Stud. Kurzversion)
24.03.2022 – IMPACTZONE | HfMT, Köln (Stud. Kurzversion)
15.11.2021 – Theater in Bewegung Tanzfestival, Jena
12.10.2021 – PACT Festival, Tübingen
10.07.2021 – EinTanzHaus, Mannheim
09.07.2021 – EinTanzHaus, Mannheim
20.06.2021 – TANZ | MODERNE | TANZ, Chemnitz
06.06.2021 – LOFFT Das Theater, Leipzig
05.06.2021 – LOFFT Das Theater, Leipzig
04.06.2021 – LOFFT Das Theater, Leipzig
About the production
In ‘What is left’, Overhead Project tells of the beauty and brutality of the world's everyday social fashion walks. Somewhere between catwalk and military parade, passive voyeurism and solidary dependence, the situation on stage varies from appropriation to individual experience, from spatial distribution to division and allocation. Five performers occupy the space and are simultaneously taken over by it. Bodies get their appearance close and discreetly and at the same time are presented in an ominous way. In the midst of distorted gestures, giddy confidence and pulsating bodies, an energy arises that spirals upwards into the heights of space.
Starting point for "What is left"
The trilogy "Geometry and Politics" experiments intensively with the theater as a space of experience, based on archetypal spatial arrangements in parliaments, and deals in three pieces with architectural spatial settings in each case.
This is also the case in the third and last production of this series: "What is left", based on the frontal "classroom" arrangement, deals with spatial structures that shape human communication culture. We are familiar with it from the waiting situation at counters, the hierarchy in the courtroom, in school and in church, from attention in the theater hall, as well as from advertising screens in subway stations, which demand and structure the gaze attention of the bodies in the room.
The frontal arrangement focuses all attention in one direction on the speaker position and spatially creates an active-sending and a passive-receiving side. This creates a powerful communication monopoly. We encounter this, among other things, in the classical classroom, in the courtroom, in the theater, in church, in the cinema or in the theater, but also at counters in waiting rooms or in the form of public advertising screens, e.g. in subway stations. All arrangements are united by a one-sided power of communication and a spatial formatting of the gaze.
We are interested in the mode of action of this frontality in two ways: First, in the structural connection between order and power, and second, in the psychological connection between authority and destructiveness: A specific quality of frontal space is to distribute, order, and classify bodies, forces, speeds, and signs. This connection between order and power is especially evident in colonial systems of order that were used to produce subjects addressable by power; for example, through the introduction of school systems. In this context, different frontal spaces show very particular qualities of partitioning.
In addition to the quality of the space, we are also interested in the underlying psychological mechanisms of the authoritarian and the effective power of leading and following. The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm describes the authoritarian character as a personality with a penchant for power and order and stereotypical conventions, mental conformism, subservience to authority, destructiveness and self-aggrandizement. Analogously, he describes the sadomasochistic character: "He admires authority and strives to submit to it; at the same time, however, he wants to be authority himself and to make others submissive to him."
Team
Artistic direction, choreography: Tim Behren
Performance, Creation: Mijin Kim, Leon Börgens, Maria Madeira, Maiol Pruna Soler, Francesco Germini
Philosophical accompaniment: Eric Eggert
Dramaturgical accompaniment: Mirjam Hildbrand
Light & stage design, visual dramaturgy: Charlotte Ducousso
Lighting consultation: Felix Bonowski
Musical composition, dramaturgy: Simon Bauer
Costume design: Margot Charbonnier
Interdisciplinary Research: Anna Menzel, Mirjam Hildbrand, Eric Eggert, Charlotte Ducousso, Simon Bauer, Tim Behren
Productionmanagement: Lena Peters / Lisa Lehnen
Management, PR: Mechtild Tellmann
Press reviews
“Again and again, the actors spiral into the air with amazing body control, one holding, carrying or hyping the other. Then, everything that had been constructed collapses like a house of cards.“ Christoph B. Ströhle, Reutlinger General-Anzeiger – October 14th, 2021
Partners & Supporters
Funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Stadt Köln, Landesverband Freie Tanz- und Theaterschaffende Baden-Württemberg e.V. with funds from the Ministeriums für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst des Landes Baden-Württemberg, Kunststiftung NRW, RheinEnergieStiftung Kultur, supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Cultural Office of the City of Leipzig.
Co-produced by the residency program „Und wenn wir (es) mal zusammen probieren...?!”, a project of the kainkollektiv and tak Berlin (funded by the Kunststiftung NRW), LOFFT – DAS THEATER Leipzig, studiobühneköln and CircusDanceFestival Köln.
Residency partners were PACT Zollverein Essen (research 2019), Theater op de Markt-Dommelhof Neerpelt, EinTanzHaus Mannheim, LATIBUL (ehem. TPZAK) Köln and Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim.
The UK tour 2023 was supported by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ International Guest Performance Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne.