“How does Flying work on stage?” somebody from Hau asked me sometime in January. A couple of hints forth and back, and I suggested these guys for professional flying machinery.
“Let me know if you need help with moving in the air!”
I ended up making a sort of aerial choreography for Veit Sprenger’s Enter the Hydra, which was part of the Heiner Müller Festival at the Hau.
Rita Stelling, who in the solo installation performed Heraklis II, was super cool to work with. We immediately connected and had much fun throwing together ideas on how to treat the abstract landscape made of cubes, amorphic object and dangerous triangles created by Alexej Tcherni. The whole theatre machinery was involved. Iron curtain, revolving stage, fog, projection and life music and much more.
An overload of information in only 30 minutes, but put together in such a fine, condensed way, that each picture kept something poignant and simple. Mostly it was the tension between the whole staging and Rita as performer which made it strong on all sensory levels, I think. Visually, but also as text – image and sound installation.
All in all, a fortunate spontaneous collaboration. Here some rehearsal and performance moments.
