In »ANTIGONE pitched«, Julia*n Meding and her collaborators reduce the Antigone material to three characters and an undefined, unlawful act of care. Antigone enters into conflict not only with the destabilized ruler figure Creon and her sisterly lover* Haimon*ie, but above all with herself. More precisely: with a self-contained conception of subjectivity of the Western type.
For this purpose, voices and gestures are distorted, alienated and hysterified to the point of the unfamiliar by means of “pitching”. The result is an exposed, overformalized mode of representation that makes more complex forms of subjectivity and abstraction imaginable. Characters, identities, bodies, music, stage, costumes, and audience find new points of connection that simultaneously complicate and poeticize. Relationships of care can be reimagined from there and illuminated in their ambivalences. Also in a way of working that is deliberately processual and tries to give space to those in the theater business who do not fit:
„This call is for those,
who are faced with themselves as vulnerability and fragility every day.
For those,
who fight for their experience to be seen.
For those,
who were never meant to live:
because this world was built against them.
This is for you.”
(Adapted text passage based on Johanna Hedva: Sick Women Theory)
Under the label ANTISEPT, Julia*n Meding invites different collaborators to work on self-empowering readings of chronic illness / disability and alternative concepts of healing. Together the constellation develops rehearsal strategies and forms of sensual mediation.
N O T E :
Part of the performance is loud noises and flickering lights (stroboscopic effects).
There is nudity and abstracted kinky action.
A production of Julia*n Meding / ANTISEPT in cooperation with Ballhaus Ost. Supported by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt and the Amt für Weiterbildung und Kultur, Fachbereich Kunst und Kultur.
With the support of Vierte Welt and the residency programs #takecare and #takeheart des Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten für Kultur und Medien within the framework of NEUSTART KULTUR, in cooperation with HELLERAU, Europäisches Zentrum der Künste.
