We all search for order, clarity or a sense of narrative when we lose the ones we love or reflect on our own mortality. But it would seem that the search is in vain. Death is cruel, disordered, chaotic, tragic and, sometimes, hilarious.
Two Works on Death and Dying is an attempt to unearth the psychology and mythology that surround the theme of death. It is told in two parts: And Then She Departed in the Most Secret of Manners, a deeply personal story of loss and The Mandragora and other Beliefs, an intense meditation on the afterlife. The artists invite you to join this cathartic event in the making and to celebrate with them the inevitability of loss, grief, fear, death and our will to survive.
Followed by a post-performance discussion
Marcelina Bozek was born in a small city in Poland in 1985. She moved to Krakow immediately after high school, where she graduated from university with a Master’s degree in humanistic studies. While studying, she worked extensively with numerous theaters in Krakow. Marcelina has taught theater workshops and acting courses for many years. In October 2014 she moved to Berlin, where she continues her development as an artist, theater trainer (Instant Theatre Berlin) and cultural manager (Plötzlich am Meer Festival). She runs theater workshops, performs as an independent artist and works for art and music festivals as part of the production team. She practices physical theater methods, contact improvisation and contemporary dance. Since moving to Berlin, Marcelina has continuously worked with Tatwerk – Performative Forschung, a theater, dance and performance studio, in an ongoing collaborative relationship.
Jahman Davine is an Australian-born theater maker working between Melbourne, Australia and Berlin, Germany. Having graduated from the National Theatre Drama School, he has also studied the Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki methods with Zen Zen Zo, Australia’s leading physical theater company. Davine’s productions walk a formal tightrope between chaos and order, using philosophy and mythology to investigate themes of social ideology, fantasy and taboo. Often containing little story and void of modern characters, his work seeks to engage the audience’s collective cerebral and physical responses to time, space and causality composition. By counterpointing poetic text, visual art, spatial design, color and light, theme, myth and music to the performers’ bodies, Davine aims to create a total audience experience. In this way, he endeavors to define a new form of performing arts, one which is independent from other art forms to offer the unique possibility of an extraordinary group experience, influenced by the historic human necessity for tragic celebration, ritual and cathartic connection.
Michelle Myers is a Berlin-based writer/performer from Melbourne, Australia. After completing her training at the National Theatre Drama School in 2010, she has worked extensively in theater and film. She worked as a performer/script developer with immersive theater companies Underground Cinema, Secret Squirrel and Little Sister Productions for four years. In 2014 she co-founded TBC, an independent company focused on challenging traditional notions of theatre through unconventional staging and venues. In 2015 she studied at the William Esper Studio in New York. Her recent projects include film The Fiery Escape directed by Mehdi Messouci (MANEKINO – Berlin) and Illusion Woman, a solo performance piece written and directed by Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson for the The Soul Of Money exhibition at DOX Center for Contemporary Art, Prague.
TURI (Turi Agostino) is an Australian-born producer/composer/performer currently based in Berlin. Trained over the last 20 years as a classical pianist and well versed in the world of electronic and ambient sounds, he has worked in the fields of live and studio production, sound design for film and live performance for most of his career. He has toured nationally around Australia with various outfits in a variety of festivals and venues.
He falls in love with the leading lady of his fairy tale, threatened by his own story creatures, and in the end redeems them and is himself redeemed.