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¡SILENCIO, POR FAVOR!

The idea of absolute silence is both gratifying and threatening.

Silence can be wellness or torture, a coveted resource or an absolute nightmare. But above all, it is an impossibility: “Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot”, John Cage observed after visiting an anechoic chamber and encountering not silence but the buzzing of his nervous system and the throbbing of his blood.

¡SILENCIO, POR FAVOR! initiates a search for perfect silence, knowing full well that it does not exist. Therefore, when the ensemble searches for silence, it is actually searching for sounds: sounds of everyday life, sounds of coincidence, unintended sounds and inaudible sounds that buzz through the space in the form of imperceptible frequencies. Using selected works by John Cage and Cathy van Eck and with the help of the antennae of sound artist Marta Zapparoli, Björnsson | Marx and Opera Lab create a dense mesh of music, sounds and texts, opening up a space for reflection and experience in which the ambivalence of silence is treated just as much as the contingency of our acoustic perceptions.

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Sales of a Deadman

Only a suitcase remains of our salesman.

This postmodern composition celebrating the sound of everyday objects is inspired by Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and picks up where the play left off: after the suicidal car crash and subsequent funeral, everyone is still out to make money.

This version of purgatory is all about selling, as death has now also become part of the vicious economic cycle. It is now a marketplace where the human being has been transformed into a commodity with their stories, relationships and memories all just waiting to be bought and sold.

Following two sold-out performances in February, we are very pleased to offer two additional performances of this new production and interpretation of the composition Sales of a Deadman by Evan Gardner.

Originally performed in 2014, this new staging features a whole new cast and artistic team, reexamining the role of work-life balance in a post-pandemic, post-patriarchial leaning society, in which capitalism and its place in the marketplace of life is turned on its head and questioned vigorously.

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Sales of a Deadman

Only a suitcase remains of our salesman.

Our story picks up where Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman left off: after the suicidal car crash and subsequent funeral, everyone is still out to make money. This version of purgatory is all about selling, as death has now also become part of the vicious economic cycle. It is now a marketplace where the human being has been transformed into a commodity with their stories, relationships and memories all just waiting to be bought and sold.

This is the world premiere of a new production and interpretation of the composition Sales of a Deadman by Evan Gardner.

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Salvation (Glitter Doesn’t Care I’m A Boy)

A science fiction drag ritual and an experimental invocation for a constant distribution of desires based on visions and fantasies Shlomi Moto Wagner has experienced since he was three years old.

It explores transformations, mutations and remanifestations of the idea of being, the sensuality of being a body, the politics of having
a body and the poetics of sharing a bodily experience.

This solo music theater piece is a mythological and poetic reading of current pop culture and its academic discourse. The music of ancient
Jewish texts and invocations together with visionary tunes of composer Hildegard von Bingen from the 12th century is newly arranged with pop hits, techno compositions and contemporary feminist texts. All of this makes the opera performance a ritual of transformation.

Shlomi Moto Wagner is Mazy Mazeltov, is Wendy Williams, is Wisława Szymborska, is Fran Drescher, is Hélène Cixous and her Medusa is David Copperfield and Claudia Schiffer IN ONE BODY! And much, much more.

So, what is reality here and what is fiction? In times where a part of society wants to return to the gender roles of the 1950s, or even the 1940s, it is that much more critical to celebrate a festival of the imagination. Let’s make magic. And what comes out at the end? A concert, a drag queen musical, a monologue slam, a magic show, a bar mitzvah or simply a party with the people? Are the props ready? Powder, lipstick and glitter? All right!

Fear Industry

What are we afraid of?

2 performers and 1 mezzo-soprano reveal a living archive of 21st century fears: we now fear anything from killer bees to pedophiles, deadly diseases and online spying, avian flu, old age and mad cows, immigrants, anthrax, wrinkles, environmental collapse, and, lest we forget, terrorists.

Enthusiastically received by audience and critics during its world premiere as part of the opening festivities at the European Capital of Culture and Cyprus Fringe, the performance explores the concept of fear and its orchestrated manipulation through economic and political forces, its dissemination by the media and its subtle proliferation in contemporary society. The staging blends theater with elements from opera and Lieder and combines stand-up performance with stylized movement to walk the tightrope between our instinctive fears and those amplified and manipulated by our surroundings.

Watch the trailer here:

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“The atmospherically dense staging places us in a vigil state of recognizing a culture of fear everywhere in all its glorification and with all its personal, political and cultural dimension… …Achim Wieland manages to move this performance in the category of art as a vehicle of reawakening.” –ANEF Magazine, Christina Georghiou

“An invasive and pervasive testimony.” –TimeOut Magazine

The production as well as some sections of the European project tour are supported by the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, the Cultural Funding Program of the City of Stuttgart, Diablog.eu, the German Embassy Nicosia, MITOS Center of Performing Arts, Kulturabteilung der Republik Zypern in Berlin, the University of Nicosia, the Goethe-Institut and Columbia Shipmanagement

Featuring a post-performance discussion on Wednesday, February 17 as part of Theater Scoutings Berlin!