etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

World-renowned Irish performer and circus artist Darragh McLoughlin presents a double bill! With Stickman and The Fulfillment, he turns all expectations of circus and storytelling on their head and paints a portrait of the shared moment in the theater space.

Stickman

Stickman is a performance which features a man, a stick and a TV.

The man balances the stick on various parts of his body, thereby setting himself and the stick in motion.

If the man has an agenda, he keeps it to himself.

The stick gets moved around and balanced by the man seeming to not have much to say.

The TV lurks in the background and throughout the performance puts titles on whatever the man and the stick are doing; thus attempting to dictate what the audience see.

All the while the audience watches and tries to keep up with the ever changing rules of play.

Then the TV titles them. ‘WATCHERS’.

Stickman is an exploration of our relationships with meaning, empathy and agency.

“The phantasmagoric movements created by each meticulously calculated move and the deep exploration of each stick elicited occasional voices of pure “wow” and “wow” from the audience. It was leaking.” Mayu Yoshihira (Daily Journal Editorial Department)

“I watched the whole thing unfold with excitement. That’s the only rule of the space magic called theater.” Sae Shimaizawa (Daily Journal Editorial Department)

 

The Fulfillment

To fulfill: (verb)

1.    achieve or realize (something desired, promised, or predicted).

2.    carry out (a duty or role) as required, promised, or expected.

The Fulfillment is a modular, audience-driven performance built around a simple mechanic: an empty frame and a title. What happens next is determined by those present, and gradually as the fulfilled frames accumulate, an unpredictable live exhibition emerges, shaped entirely by those present.

Each performance becomes a portrait of our collective moment.

Darren McLoughlin was born in 1987 in Ireland as youngest of three siblings and son of two professional chefs. In 2006 he moved to Berlin to attend the Jonglier Katakomben School of Juggling. In 2008, he attended the Academy for Circus and Performance Art and completed his education with a bachelor degree in Circus Arts. In 2014, he was selected as a Circus Next laureate with Fragments of a Mind and has since created several acclaimed works: The Whistle, Stickman and For as Long as We’re Here. Besides his performance work he has created conceptual artwork series: The Fulfillment, Stories of Falling Objects, Variations of Stickman and WATCHERS.

Darragh teaches at different professional institutions around Europe: FLIC Scuola di Circo, ACAPA, Die Etage, CODARTS and Les Beaux Arts, HMDK Stuttgart.