March 2016 | Being me – whoever that is. Contemporary Forms of Representation.
What are we pretending to be? Cheers for Fears presented contemporary forms of performing by the young theater scene at Cheers for Fears Fest 2016. At the working meeting of the students of scenic arts, the focus was on the performers who, as actors, dancers or performers, located themselves between established theater forms and innovative stage experiments.
How is the theater of the future being formed?
Based on a performance marathon of advanced students confidently asserting their positions on stage, Cheers for Fears addressed fundamental questions such as: What role do actors and dancers play in the creation of a work today? What makes a “good performer,” what makes a “good actress”? What is the status of dramatic texts and stage characters between tradition and experimental forms? What is the relationship between acting and performance art in contemporary practice? What educational concepts does a hybrid theater need?
PROGRAM ON SATURDAY 19.3.
Performance block I
Start: 15:00
EINkollektiv: Bonn liegt in der 1. Etage
EINkollektiv wonders why we remember when we smell certain odors, why the sight of a familiar tree makes us break down, what living actually leaves in our memory, and how spatial memory works. They let people, objects, images, and lists of long-forgotten property collide to trigger (de-)contextualized memories in the whirl of perspectives.
Stage 2 :: 30 MIN ::: By and with Laura Brechmann (Scenic Research, Ruhr-University Bochum), Stephanie von Gelmini (Photography, University of Applied Sciences Dortmund), Tania Reinicke (Photography Studies and Practice, Folkwang University Essen), Anne Weyler (Media Arts, Academy of Media Arts Cologne)
dorisdean: I LIKE TO PLAY
Five performers stand on an almost empty stage, only in the background images are projected on a screen. In alternating scenes and with different theatrical means, the performers deal with love, sexuality and their social gender. Silent scenes, danced questions on a pointe shoe, sung think pieces, a monkey costume and a wheelchair user in a Dominatix outfit: I LIKE TO PLAY.
Stage 3 :: 60 MIN ::: By and with Christopher Bruckman (Alumnus Mannes Collage of Music New York, Miriam Michel (Scenic Research, Ruhr-University Bochum), Patrizia Kubanek (Alumna Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum), Philipp Hohmann (Theater Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum), Wera Mahne (Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice, University of Hildesheim)
Artmann & Duvoisin: Kontakt abbilden/Reaktion auf Feedback
What attitude does receiving feedback create? I need to touch your hands with my body. Are we a good couple? Do we have to agree just because we are in a circle
? “Contact mapping/responding to feedback” brings together two realities of intersubjective
work: the feedback-based learning in dance studies and our pairing as artistic
production facility.
Stage 1 :: 40 MIN ::: By and with Elsa Artmann (Contemporary Dance, Cologne University of Music and Dance; Painting/Graphics, Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts), Simon Duvoisin (Painting/Graphics, Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts)
Diskussion mit Florian Malzacher und Bernd Stegemann
Start 18:00
The conversation focused on the political potentials of contemporary theater and addressed the differences and similarities of traditional theatrical means and performative forms. Is a distinction between theater and performance still appropriate today? What will the future theater look like and what social relevance will it claim for itself?
Discussion ::: Stage 3
Florian Malzacher was the artistic director of the Impulse Theater Festival and a freelance curator in 2013-2017. He is considered a knowledgeable expert on the current international theater scene and sees post-dramatic forms as critical instances that challenge social conditions.
Bernd Stegemann is professor of theater history and dramaturgy at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. From 2009 to 2016 he was dramaturge at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin. In 2015, his book “Lob des Realismus” (In Praise of Realism) was published, in which he subjects postmodern theater aesthetics to a political critique that is as pointed as it is radical, and opposes it with the search for a new realism.
Encounter
Bös: Secret
Take the remote control. If it is not there, the room is occupied.
2. enter the room one by one. The encounter begins after you pass the curtain.
3. when you press the marked button, the light turns on and the encounter is finished.
From 19 :30 and 22 :30 for one person each ::: Stage 1 ::: By and with Sebastian Bös (Scenic Research, Ruhr-University Bochum)
Performance block II
Beginn: 20:30
Armada Theater: Am Strand des Styx
If you exhale and do not inhale again, you are dead. Each of us will experience this moment. Sooner or later. Although we know this, our consciousness is not able to unite the supposed opposites of living and dying. We repress, run away and fear the inevitable. But what happens when we encounter death? How can we understand death as part of life? Or recognize that life means dying and that transience makes life possible?
Stage 3 :: 45 MIN ::: By and with Clara Gohmert (Physical Theatre, Folkwang University Essen), Mats Süthoff (Physical Theatre, Folkwang University Essen), Michael Zier (Alumnus Physical Theatre, Folkwang University Essen)
ZOO: 450qm ready furnished
An attempt to analyze the furnishings that surround us in everyday life and the ways in which they are used. In a fantastic scenario of a hyperreal competition of upgrading and retooling, the performers in competition with themselves and the furniture explore, rework, rethink and break up the roundhouse into a thunderdome.
Stage 2 :: 55 MIN ::: By and with Jens Eike Krüger (Scenic Research, Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Constantin Leonhard (Scenic Research, Ruhr-Universität Bochum/ Media Arts, Academy of Media Arts Cologne), Anja Plonka (Scenic Research, Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
PROGRAM ON SUNDAY 20.03.
Party & Breakfast Talks
Cheers for Fears meets Ringelpietz
The “Heidi Hoh” designed by Raumlabor Berlin presents itself as a changeable space between café, pub, agora, club and debating place. Since its opening, the Heidi Hoh regularly invites to the Ringelpietz. On the evening of March 19, starting at 10 pm, the time had come again. For the Cheers for Fears edition of the Ringelpietzparty, the host DJ Alpha was invited with music ranging from electro-funk to swing, house and soul. DJs from the Cheers for Fears community played afterwards.
Breakfast & round table
After a marathon of performances and a panel discussion on Saturday evening, we will discuss the works seen and the positions negotiated in the circle of the participating artists and all interested guests on Sunday morning. After an extensive breakfast at the Heidi Hoh, which invites an informal first exchange about fascinating and irritating things, we will go more intensively into the evening against the background of the festival theme at the “World Café” in stage 2: What is the relationship between direction/creation and representation? How are negotiated topics and chosen forms of presentation related to each other? How do the works relate to artistic signatures taught at universities?
Impressions





































































