Performance-Labor

Theaterhaus Jena, together with the Ensemble Council, has made it its mission to give actors the opportunity to develop their own projects and to explore new artistic forms of expression in smaller formats.

In the Performance Lab, Anna K. Seidel and Linde Dercon present self-written texts and developed performances.

THE RICCI RIVER

By and with Anna K. Seidel

UR: So this is a magazine. You’re reading a magazine; back there are the pyramids. Now you turn the page and that’s the interval. In the past, you could see your reflection in the pyramids. Could you leave the water in? Then I’d just go swimming afterward. I spy with my little eye something you don’t see. Five pyramids—I thought there were three. I want to get into the bathtub too. I’ll lie down in the bathtub once you’ve gotten out of the bathtub; then I’ll lie in the bathtub the way you’re lying in the bathtub right now. You’re reading a magazine in the bathtub, the window is open. Behind you, five pyramids—three big ones and two small ones. There’s a fly; it lands on your magazine and now it flies away again, now it’s flown into your bathtub, now the fly is in the bathtub. Two more minutes. Do you need quiet? Then I’ll be silent and then we have to go.

In “The Ricci River”, Sun Del and UR embark on a turbulent journey, drifting downstream into the Death Valley of hidden hopes. Based on a true event from the year 1868—the year of the first successful transatlantic deep-sea cable connection. They set off from Marseille and most likely pass the Kidney Center in Cairo. Bonum cursum!

Concept, Direction: Anna K. Seidel
With: UR, Sun Del, and appearances by Andreas Koschella
& Nasty Stylistix: Egor Ryabokin, Hai Göring, Marco Grünschloss, Max Preißel, Nam Dang
Robotics: Alexander Buers
Costume (Make-up): Marie-Luise Seidel
Artistic Consulting: Felix Günther
Outside Eye: Jakob Altmayer
Special thanks to Volkssternwarte Urania e.V., Hof Matthesens, and Universal Robots

MODESTY or HOW MY BOYFRIEND DISAPPEARED ON TELEVISION

Staged reading by and with Linde Dercon

Imagine this: the person you recently fell hopelessly in love with tells you that he’s going to take part in a reality show à la Big Brother, together with 16 average Dutch participants, completely cut off from the outside world. You beg him not to go, but then he reveals that it’s all part of an art project and, of course, it won’t be real. One can hardly object to “art,” and so he disappears on television.

Nervously, she tries to stream the latest episodes of the show via her shaky VPN connection, her heart stopping at every moment in the hot tub.

Inspired by the absurdity of this reality, Linde Dercon decides to start her own art project—a revenge act responding to her boyfriend’s absurd art project.

Whether it’s love, art, or reality TV:
each shapes our understanding of modesty in its own way.

In creative collaboration with Thomas Spijkerman, Linde Dercon will stage a bizarre and theatrical reading.

Coaching and Final Direction: Thomas Spijkerman
By and with: Linde Dercon
Special thanks to Olivier Arts, Mona Vojacek Koper, and Henrike Commichau

Both productions were realized with funding from the Federal Theatre Prize of Germany.