|
P e t e r S t a m e r
F r a n k W i l l e n s
O n T r u t h a n d L i e
i n a n E x t r a - M o r a l S e n s e Conceived, directed, set and staged by Peter STAMER Performed by Frank WILLENS Text by Friedrich NIETZSCHE Abridged, altered and partially re-translated from German into English by Peter Stamer, Frank Willens Duration 45min Produced by Peter Stamer/GARAGE
In some remote corner of the universe that is poured out in countless flickering solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the most arrogant and the most untruthful minute in ‘world history’ – yet indeed only a minute. After nature had taken a few breaths, the star froze over and the clever animals had to die.Friedrich Nietzsche, 1873
In the light of infinity, the limited time a human being spends on this planet does appear to be deplorable, even ridiculous. Knowing about the futility of his existence, man tries to comprehend life by means of language which locks him into the cage of concepts though. Language, following Nietzsche, denies access to the actual life of matter. Searching for knowledge about the world, about truth, about himself, man gets lost in the woodwork of his own thinking. To put it casually: man becomes a blockhead, unable to see what is there. Taking away the foundation of the boards that mean the world to him: this is what it means to live.
Without Nietzsche there wouldn’t be any contemporary thinking, and thus most likely no contemporary body.’ I jot these words down during a rehearsal in which dancers are busy bouncing off the floor and working out their muscles, keeping their ligaments flexible. This is what Nietzsche is doing. He writes against the gravity of thought and thus trains our mental muscles, he writes against the inertia of our minds and makes them move again. His words do and have matter.
PETER STAMER (DE/A) is a theatre maker in the context of contemporary performing arts. In his projects, he is interested in exploring conditions for discursive and physical empowerment within given performative, social and narrative apparatuses. Beyond his theatre work and teaching activities in all of Europe, his performance and theatre projects have led him to China, the USA, Canada, Egypt or Israel. Among his recent works are to be found the international building/performance project A Future Archeology in Berlin, Vienna and Cairo (2012 – 2013), which provided the initial impulses for the book How to Collaborate? – Questioning Togetherness in the Performing Arts which was published in 2016, his performative installation and film 26 Letters to Deleuze (EMPAC New York) in 2014, The Circus of Life A-Z (together with Yosi Wanunu) in Vienna (2015), or the adaptation of Nietzsche’s essay On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (2015), for which he also created the set design. Currently, Peter is conceiving a theatrical and installative adaptation of Kafka’s story In the Penal Colony (planned for 2017).
at the festival Peter is also giving a workshop
for more information
FRANK WILLENS (US/DE) is a dancer, choreographer, performer, interpreter, artist, actor, collaborator, tour manager, human, father, singer, beat-boxer, thinker, marathon-runner, train-traveler. He grew up in California and has lived and worked in Berlin since 2003 where he has had the privilege to work with a wide number of persons in a wide range of projects presented in a wide range of venues. His associates include Tino Sehgal, Meg Stuart, Falk Richter, Laurent Chétouane, Boris Charmatz, Tilman Hecker, Nico and the Navigators, and Peter Stamer, to name a few. His own projects include Gimme Shelter (2010), Schweigstück (2011), Towards Another Miraculous (2014), and a contribution to X-Firmen at Theater der Welt in Mannheim in 2014. Frank developed a project in collaboration with the Transform Festival in Leeds in 2015 and headed a residency/lab at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn in 2016. On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense is his 5th collaboration with Peter Stamer.
|
