Wesen der Abwesenheit / Essence of Absence

Those who are there are not the problem in the theater, but those who are not there.

Zum Video mit Audiodeskription

While many art forms cope very well with the phenomenon of absence, the performing arts lose their raison d'être with no one present. They become an eternal rehearsal.

How can that which is there and those who are there understand both the absent and the absence in order to deal with them productively and use this as a starting point for transformations and new presences?

During a debate in an open-air onsen, ten experts will give presence, voice and form to the being(s) and nature of absence through spoken contributions, singing, meditations, performances, water ballet and turning to the help of the Holy Spirit force. Themes include the forces of nature, young people who don't want to be represented by adults, activists who have lost faith in theater, self-sufficient people who would rather aerate their compost than go to the theater, Asian mud-dauber wasps who can't find mortar in the theater, the dead who invented theater, bereaved people who have no one to go to the theater with, and many more.

The lab explores the essence of absence, defines commonalities and differences in exploratory conversations among the representatives, and manifests proposals of transformation in a final public declaration.

Tatjana Ahle-Rosental (Religious Scholar, Artist, Curator Museum für Sepulkralkultur Kassel), Dido Aquilanti (Student), Louise Brown (Funeral Speaker, Writer, Journalist), Christopher Dell (Composer, Philosopher, Urban Expert), Bernadette La Hengst (Musician, Director, Activist), Michael John (Psychiatrist, Theater Maker with mentally ill people), Christophe Meierhans (Director, Activist, Musician), Marianne Sonneck (Performance Artist, organism democracy, Club Real Berlin), Christian Tschirner (Author, Performer, Dramaturx) & Margarita Tsomou (Cultural and Theater Scholar, Dramaturg, Curator, Activist)