http://www.dorkypark.org/site/exhibit/the-past/
A production by Constanza Macras | DorkyPark and HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden in coproduction with Schaubühne Berlin. Funded through the Doppelpass program by Kulturstiftung des Bundes. With the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
THE PAST explores the art of memory, or ars memoriae, in which memories are particularly strongly associated with physical locations, rooms and architecture. The starting point is the city as a concrete geographical location, as an anchor for memory, a mental picture and a cast of mind. What happens with our memories, what happens to those who are remembering when these physical places are destroyed? Constanza Macras talked to eyewitnesses who can remember cities that no longer exist in the same form today. The actions in the piece refer to the ancient techniques of ars memoriae, whereby in order to recall the thing to be remembered, we first have to find and organise our impressions. At the heart of this mnemonic technique is spatial orientation. How do we use rooms and places to remember?
The piece explores architectonic places as narrative instruments of our history – in the rewriting of history, for overcoming the wounds of the past, and for understanding contemporary events (personal and global) as part of a constant cycle that we experience as the passing of time. THE PAST is the fruit of a close collaboration with Oscar Bianchi, who composed a music delving into collective and individual memory. Exploring spaces between written and oral practice, the music embodies both the amplitude and the contradictions that rites of passage, communication and memory entail in the sphere of sound, and celebrate sound as a physical, sometime muscular, place where emotional and existential realities find in memory an independent and sometime ruleless form of storage.
Director / Choreography: Constanza Macras
Music / Composition: Oscar Bianchi
Dramaturgy: Carmen Mehnert
By and with: Louis Becker, Emil Bordás, Fernanda Farah, Luc Guiol, Miako Klein, Nile Koetting, Johanna Lemke, Ana Mondini, Felix Saalmann, Miki Shoji, Michael Weilacher
Musicians: Miako Klein, Michael Weilacher
Light: Sergio Pessanha
Sound: Stephan Wöhrmann
Stage: Laura Gamberg / Chika Takabayashi
Metal Works: Werner Knoof, Andreas Nestler
Stage Manager: Welko Funke
Technical director: Kai Kaden / Welko Funke
Costume: Allie Saunders
Costume Assistant: Daphna Munz
Assistant director: Felipe Amaya / Nikoletta Fischer
Research India: Felipe Amaya
Assistant to the music composer: Vincenzo Mazzone, Clara Calero Durán
Trainees: Marlene Kolatschny, Lea Gugger, Victor Colmenero Mir, Laia Alberich Casañas, Louise Douet-Sinenberg
Production Management: Katharina Wallisch
Production Office: René Dombrowski
Production Interns: Fiederike Aps, Raquel Moreira
Tour Management: Ricardo Frayha
Project coordination Doppelpass: Anne-Katrin Schmidt / Katharina Wallisch
A production by Constanza Macras | DorkyPark and HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden in coproduction with Schaubühne Berlin. Funded through the Doppelpass program by Kulturstiftung des Bundes. With the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
THE PAST explores the art of memory, or ars memoriae, in which memories are particularly strongly associated with physical locations, rooms and architecture. The starting point is the city as a concrete geographical location, as an anchor for memory, a mental picture and a cast of mind. What happens with our memories, what happens to those who are remembering when these physical places are destroyed? Constanza Macras talked to eyewitnesses who can remember cities that no longer exist in the same form today. The actions in the piece refer to the ancient techniques of ars memoriae, whereby in order to recall the thing to be remembered, we first have to find and organise our impressions. At the heart of this mnemonic technique is spatial orientation. How do we use rooms and places to remember?
The piece explores architectonic places as narrative instruments of our history – in the rewriting of history, for overcoming the wounds of the past, and for understanding contemporary events (personal and global) as part of a constant cycle that we experience as the passing of time. THE PAST is the fruit of a close collaboration with Oscar Bianchi, who composed a music delving into collective and individual memory. Exploring spaces between written and oral practice, the music embodies both the amplitude and the contradictions that rites of passage, communication and memory entail in the sphere of sound, and celebrate sound as a physical, sometime muscular, place where emotional and existential realities find in memory an independent and sometime ruleless form of storage.
Director / Choreography: Constanza Macras
Music / Composition: Oscar Bianchi
Dramaturgy: Carmen Mehnert
By and with: Louis Becker, Emil Bordás, Fernanda Farah, Luc Guiol, Miako Klein, Nile Koetting, Johanna Lemke, Ana Mondini, Felix Saalmann, Miki Shoji, Michael Weilacher
Musicians: Miako Klein, Michael Weilacher
Light: Sergio Pessanha
Sound: Stephan Wöhrmann
Stage: Laura Gamberg / Chika Takabayashi
Metal Works: Werner Knoof, Andreas Nestler
Stage Manager: Welko Funke
Technical director: Kai Kaden / Welko Funke
Costume: Allie Saunders
Costume Assistant: Daphna Munz
Assistant director: Felipe Amaya / Nikoletta Fischer
Research India: Felipe Amaya
Assistant to the music composer: Vincenzo Mazzone, Clara Calero Durán
Trainees: Marlene Kolatschny, Lea Gugger, Victor Colmenero Mir, Laia Alberich Casañas, Louise Douet-Sinenberg
Production Management: Katharina Wallisch
Production Office: René Dombrowski
Production Interns: Fiederike Aps, Raquel Moreira
Tour Management: Ricardo Frayha
Project coordination Doppelpass: Anne-Katrin Schmidt / Katharina Wallisch
