16 SOLOS. Program

Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and Theatre Von Krahl present:

I6 SOLOS ON GREEK TRAGEDY Premiere 1-2 February 2020 in Theatre Von Krahl (Tallinn, Estonia)

Created and performed by MA in Contemporary Physical Performance Making (CPPM) students: Agnes Oberauer (Austria), Andreea Tudose (Rumenia/UK), Georgina Buhagiar (Malta), Iveta Pole (Latvia), Joonas Tagel (Estonia), Keithy Kuuspu (Estonia), Lea Sekulic (Croatia), Liisa Saaremäel (Estonia), Marshall Stay (Australia), Markus Truup (Estonia), Paolo Panizza (Italy), Ragnar Uustal (Estonia), Rasmus Kaljujärv (Estonia), Seo Hwon Ji (South Korea), Seren Oroszvary (Australia) and Simona Medolago (Italy).

Scenography Consultant: Kairi Mändla Lighting Design: Denis Bretško (DElight OÜ) Sound: Jürgen Reismaa Video: Mikk-Mart Kivi Stage Manager: Ana Sanchez-Colberg Headshots: Marshall Stay Printed media design: Johan Elm

Special thanks to Liina Jääts, Sakala 3 Teatrimaja, and all the tutors and guest artist that have been teaching CPPM students this semester: Ryan Perkins-Gangnes (Gecko, UK), Tadashi Endo (Butoh-MA, Germany), Yorgos Karamalegos (Physical Lab, Greece/UK), Stacy Makishi (Hawaii), Marilena Dara (Jasmin Vardimon Company, UK), Iona Kewney (Scotland), Will Bond and Stephen Webber (SITI Company, USA), Eddie Martinez (Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Germany), Guillaume Pige (Theatre Re, UK), Kasper Vandenberghe and Maria Dafrenos (Jan Fabre Troubleyn, Belgium), Agnieszka Mendel and Janek Zorawski (Gardzienice, Poland), Anne Türnpu, Maret Mursa, Madli Pesti, Anna Ranczakowska, Kristina Pashkevicius, Anne-Liis Poll, Marin Johnson, Lilian Reinmets, Ana Sanchez-Colberg, Giacomo Veronesi and Jüri Nael.

Overrun KEITHY KUUSPU / Estonia

She pretends not to be aware and says senseless things that should have ruined her.

He has life’s liberating force Release of limbs and communion He is repose from all cares But Do not mistake the rule of force for true power Men are not shaped by it Some years later, he and she were arguing about who got more pleasure from sex: men or women. To settle the argument, they called for Tiresias, who had lived as both.

Tiresias took the side of him, saying that women’s pleasure was greater, and she, in her fury, turned him blind.

Society must allow room for the irrational, in a healthy balance with the rational.

It is just a game.

Keithy Kuuspu is a young performance and dance artist from Estonia, Tallinn. She has graduated Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School in dance. She investigates the question and boundaries of realness. She is particularly interested in the processes and reactions of human interaction; the influence people have on each other, and how and from what energy is generated between people and individuals.

Special thanks to HENRY KASCH and BRIT KIKAS

Tiny Home Theatre Production Presents LIISA SAAREMÄEL / Estonia

Taking Homeric Hymn to Demeter as a starting point, I focused my work on Demeter’s daughter Persephone, the goddess of vegetation and the queen of Underworld. I was fascinated by her state of belonging both to the Earth and the Underworld, and thus, to neither of those entities. It became a conscious spatial research within the body and about the space surrounding it. I was guided by the change of seasons and Persephone’s shrill cry to her father Zeus during the abduction by Hades.

Tiny Home Theatre Production was founded in 2016. It´s located in a small rental space - 20 something square meters - in a nice neighbourhood. THTP is tiny and full. It’s an explosion in a compressed room. The light in THTP, mixing lamps with candles, carries a silent fury. No carpet is laid down in THTP and the basement breaths out between the toes. Plants die sacrificing their space for the one who is dancing in the middle of the room since the opening ceremony. She is wearing jewels and flip flops.

She is thirsty, but the spring is in the basement. She is the one and the only member of Tiny Home Theatre Production.

Liisa Saaremäel is a performing artist from Estonia. After graduating high school, she entered the Drama School of Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. After graduating from BA in Acting, she joined Estonian Drama Theatre. During the three years working in an ensemble, she has worked together with many renowned and inspiring theatre practitioners from Estonia and abroad. Although Liisa has established herself mainly in acting, she has always been interested in dance and physicality in the broadest sense.

Music: Roy Orbison

Prometheus RASMUS KALJUJÄRV / Estonia

“For men first had eyes but could not see; they had ears but could not hear; instead; like the shapes of dreams they conducted all matters in confusion for their whole long life… they lived like swarming ants in the sunless hollows of caves.”

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so) was speech - and both are still dangerous to this day - but human beings would not be human without them.” Isaac Asimov

“There is a powerful force within us, an un-illuminated part of the mind - separate from the conscious mind that is constantly at work molding our thought, feelings, and actions.” Sigmund Freud

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?” Rosemary Kennedy

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” Sigmund Freud

“I don’t think I’m easy to talk about. I’ve got a very irregular head. And I’m not anything that you think I am anyway.” Sid Barrett

Rasmus Kaljujärv is an Estonian actor, dancer, choreographer, director, writer, stage designer, filmmaker, athlete, teacher, psychologist, laborer, commercial banker, dentist, engineer, consultant, programmer, research analyst, mechanic, investment banker, lawyer, acupuncturist, agricultural consultant, insurance broker, forest worker, refuse collector, lifeguard, tailor, tour guide, hotel porter and firefighter.

Collaborators: EVA LINDA SAMMELSELG (costume), GRISTINA PAHMANN (make up) Music: Gwen McCrae, Marilyn Monroe

Hecuba seen from the water ANDREEA TUDOSE / Romania/UK

“Like an actor, a mourner is a duplicitous figure, one who imitates death, but with a living voice, who testifies to death, but cannot help still being alive.”

(“The Survivor’s Song” by Sheila Murnaghan)

Hecuba seen from the water is an exploration of the multiple voices of grief, and of tragedy as form. Taking Sheila Murnaghan’s article as a starting point, this work is interested in a version of tragedy that is not merely about death, but about surviving others’ deaths. A survival in which we - all of us who are alive - are complicit. How do we, “the survivors”, relate to those who have died, and how do we relate to one another?

How can I mourn my dead without my suffering and my loss taking centre stage? Is there a way in which “the starker loss experienced by the dead” could take the space, even for a second? Could staging their absence ever resurrect their presence?

With these questions in mind, the work looks to negotiate a new participatory dynamic between performer and audience, which would allow for something to appear, a presence “imagined” or “witnessed” together in the empty space.

Aside from Murnaghan’s essay, influences include British playwright Tim Crouch, Portuguese theatre director Tiago Rodrigues and Tadeusz Kantor’s writings.

Andreea Tudose is an actor and writer. Born in Romania in 1992, she moved to England aged 11. Upon completing her BA in Modern Languages, and her MPhil in Comparative Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, she was awarded a studentship at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. During this time, she continued to train and work as an actress both in the UK and in Paris. On stage she has worked with Nicholas Barter (RADA), Lionel Parlier (Paris VIII), Lionel Gonzalez, Troupe Geripae from South Korea and Fortebraccio Teatro from Italy. She began acting in short films after being introduced to screen acting by directors Lucas Rue and Mary Nighy. After co-creating a version of Strindberg’s La plus forte with Mathieu Delaveau in Paris in 2016, she became increasingly interested in physical theatre.

Text: ANDREEA TUDOSE, “HECUBA” BY EURIPIDES (TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM ARROWSMITH)

(t)RAGEDY/(t)RAGÖÖDIA RAGNAR UUSTAL / Estonia

Philoctetes left with the Greeks to participate in the Trojan War but was bitten on the foot by a snake while walking on Chryse, a sacred ground. The bite caused him constant agony and emitted a horrible smell. For this reason, he was left by Odysseus and the Greeks on the desert island Lemnos.

Ten years pass and the Greeks capture the Trojan seer Helenus. He foretells that they will need the master archer Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles to win the war. Odysseus sails back to Lemnos with Neoptolemus (son of Achilles) to get Philoctetes.

My interest in Philoctetes was to research the body in space, the sick body, isolation and the mind. What happens when a person is left alone and has been living in a cave for a long time? What happens when there is an unexpected human contact?

“And no one called us to the land And no one knows the where’s or why’s Something stirs and something tries Starts to climb toward the light…

And no one sings me lullabies And no one makes me close my eyes So I throw the windows wide And call to you across the sky” (Echoes, Pink Floyd, 1971)

Ragnar Uustal is an Estonian actor. After high school, he went on to Drama School at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. After graduating, he started working as an actor in Theatre NO99 where the ensemble worked and collaborated with different directors and performance artists. He has a physical theatre background, has participated in several short films and is interested in performance art.

Text: RAGNAR UUSTAL, GERT/KERT / Music: Beethoven Special thanks to Andreea Tudose and Gert/Kert

B32 LEA SEKULIC / Croatia

“Well my little traitors it is not in vain that you have cried Carve you from my heart I will My flesh and blood, My memory, My loved ones.

Wounds and scars make good poison.

Why are you screaming Worse than death is being old You’d kiss the hand that brings you death were you to know what life is like That was Corinth.

Who are you Which animal is that hiding in your eyes Pretending to be dead” (“Medea Material” by Heiner Müller)

Lea Sekulic is an artist from Croatia. Being born in a country with a divided identity, she found hers in the world of art. In 2018 she graduated from Academy of Arts in Banja Luka (Bosnia & Herzegovina) where she revived her long lost connection with Balkan roots and met her true friends and colleagues who are now together in a company that breaks borders and national captivity.

Adventurer, seeker, traveller, lover of life, she seeks poetry in madness and loves being lost. Smiles a lot. Cries a lot. Is inspired by flowers.

Text: ‘’MEDEA MATERIAL’’ by HEINER MÜLLER Music: Gabi Novak, Claude Debussy, Sophie

The Less You Know, the Better MARSHALL STAY / Australia

There is a multitude of influences, research topics, inspirations, and themes that have flowed to and from in the creating of this work. Yet, what we’re left with is a piece of theatre that shows almost none of them explicitly, but has their souls living inside of it. Much like myself in this creative process, and much like Oedipus - the original motherf*cker – the less you know, the better.

“Do not take them away from me.”

Oedipus’ final words to Creon

Marshall Stay is an emerging physical performer, theatre-maker, actor, director, photographer, and videographer hailing from the sunny shores of Australia. He first became interested in the performing arts after viewing the annual high school musical and deciding that it was the best possible way to meet girls. Since then, he has performed in Brisbane as an independent artist, as well with the Shake & Stir Theatre company before receiving an offer to study the Bachelor of Performing Arts (Performance Making) at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in Perth.

At WAAPA he trained in Butoh-inspired methods of Suzuki and physical theatre, as well as acting, writing, directing, and design, and discovered a love for integrating his performance skills with technology and musical composition as an integral element of the creative process.

Text: “OEDIPUS THE KING” BY SOPHOCLES (translated by IAN JOHNSTON, 2004) Music: Composition by Marshall Stay

AJAX: how to stage a suicide (?)

PAOLO PANIZZA / Italy

“Great unfathomable time brings dark things into light and buries the bright in darkness. Nothing is too strange, time sizes the most dread oath, the most hardened mind”

“Ajax” by Sophocles

Ajax feels, in the Greek army, second only to Achilles. Therefore, after Achilles death, he claims the warrior weapons for himself. But instead, Odysseus gets them and Ajax, frauded by Athena, murders in revenge a herd thinking it’s the Greek army. The play ends with the hero’s suicide, out of shame.

“Sophocles’ Ajax sees beyond his own tragedy into a universal darkness; there is a brutal mutability at the heart of things - betrayal, God-inflicted madness, and degradation are merely its symptoms. No Sophoclean play is so concerned with time and so saturated with temporal expressions.”

“Ajax” by Herbert Golder and Richard Pevear

Paolo Panizza is a theatre director, actor and performer based in Milan.

Trained as an actor in Milan and New York, he started acting at Teatro Franco Parenti in various productions directed by Fabio Cherstich. In 2016, he got a role in the Italian movie “Che vuoi che sia”, produced by Warner Bros Pictures. While acting, he also started working as assistant director for Lara Franceschetti, Mariano Furlani, Fabio Cherstich and Mattia Giorgetti. Paolo’s first work as an independent director was “The death and the Maiden” by Dorfman, and was titled “Wahrheit Macht Frei”. He directed performances in the Sforza Castle and has two shows currently touring in Italy. He is a member of the cultural association Spazio Verticale, as director and assistant director.

Paolo also worked as assistant director for James Conway (English Touring Opera) for “Alcina” by Handel. Since then he has directed scenes from “Il Matrimonio Segreto” by Cimarosa, “Fidelio” by Beethoven, “Orlando” by Handel, “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” by Offenbach and “L’incoronazione di Poppea” by Monteverdi.

Text: “AJAX” by SOPHOCLES, “PETROLIO” by PASOLINI, “MALAGRAZIA” by MICHELANGELO ZENO, “GOOD MORNING VIETNAM” by MITCH MARKOVITZ and “THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS” by THOMAS HARRIS. Collaborators: ANDREA ALBANESE and STEFANO MAZZOTTI (live electronic music), TRIIN UUSTALU (costume), LIISBETH LIIDEMAA (makeup).

Special thanks to Marshall Stay and Ragnar Uustal for their recorded voices and Edoardo Ferrari for the drawing.

PART 1

Estonia

Estonia

KEITHY KUUSPU

LIISA SAAREMÄEL

Estonia

Romania / UK

Estonia

RASMUS KALJUJÄRV

ANDREEA TUDOSE

RAGNAR UUSTAL

Croatia

Australia

Italy

LEA SEKULIC

MARSHALL STAY

PAOLO PANIZZA

Estonia

Australia

Malta

MARKUS TRUUP

SEREN OROSZVARY

GEORGINA BUHAGIAR

Latvia

Estonia

Italy

IVETA POLE

JOONAS TAGEL

SIMONA MEDOLAGO

PART 1I

South-Korea

Austria

SEO HWON JI

AGNES OBERAUER

Escape from your dreams and never wake up MARKUS TRUUP / Estonia

This solo performance is inspired by the tragic hero King Oedipus, the man, who tried to escape the fate that the oracle had foretold him: he would kill his father and marry his mother. The harder Oedipus fought to escape his fate, the more he was swallowed by it. Unable to see the bitter irrefutability of his destiny, Oedipus could only blind himself.

Constant dissatisfaction with myself.

FOMO (Fear of missing out) that grows into a conviction.

Jealousy.

Struggle to be the best and for others to acknowledge it.

These are some of the components that make me a perfect consumer in this capitalistic machinery. Theoretically, I want to rest, but in reality, I only work more. And when I’m not, I escape from myself into a million screens. I dissolve in consumerism. I’m on sleeping pills to battle insomnia, caffeine and nicotine to stay awake. Is it possible to break this chain? Paraphrasing J.G. Ballard: “...if one must escape it should be into ones inner-cosmos, into the bright lightshow of madness”.

Markus Truup was born in a little South Estonian village called Vana-Roosa. In 2018 he graduated the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre as an actor. After graduation, he worked for a year as a freelancer. As of this year, he is a part of a brand-new ensemble in a theatre called Von Krahl.

Text: MARKUS TRUUP Music: Tõnu Tepandi, Markus Truup

Between Seeing and Touching SEREN OROSZVARY / Australia

I am working with the tragedy of Cassandra. In trying to win her favour, Apollo grants Cassandra the gift of prophecy, but after rejecting the God, she is given the curse of no one ever believing her. Although her speech is true, she is incomprehensible to all those around her. Her destiny is determined by powers beyond her control, which she ironically chose for herself. This piece is about moving toward something you long for in life and that you may never reach. It is about yearning for a voice you may never find or one that may never be heard but keeps you going. Hope? Desire? Nevertheless, the moving forward must be enough. Further inspirations include the poetry of Sylvia Plath and the self-ironic venture and death of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid”.

Seren Oroszvary is 25 with Hungarian-Irish background. After completing a BA in Creative Writing at The University of Melbourne, Seren relocated overseas.

She played at Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Almeida Theatre Young Company. She then continued in Copenhagen where she completed a Diploma in Voice and Drama at København’s Film & Teaterskole and later working as an actor with the House of International Theatre. Seren is Co-Founder/Director of Balloon Head Theatre, for which she wrote and directed ‘Raffles on Capri’, a musical premiere inspired by songs of the band Benny & The Dukes. Seren performed with Melbourne University Shakespeare Company, NIDA Actors’ Studio and La Mama and has played in Australian, Danish and Swedish films. She is now seeking out how physical theatre enables her to tap into new ways of working on screen and stage.

Text: THE BELL JAR AND ARIEL by SYLVIA PLATH, AGAMEMNON by AESCHYLUS (translated by G. Murray) Collaborators: MIRKKU MATTINEN (Cello, Composer) A special thanks Liisbeth Kala for life and title inspiration.

Night_club Narciss_us GEORGINA BUHAGIAR / Malta “Take off your hands! you shall not fold your arms around me.

Better death than such a one should ever caress me!”

556 Metamorphoses

“The poet Ovid wisely places echo alongside Narcissus.The eye and the voice, Narcissus’ reflected image, and Echo’s reverberating voice. The story tells of their impossible reconciliation.” (Cavarero, 2005) Are you experiencing feelings of emptiness?

Do you feel disconnected with your body?

Do you really enjoy spending time with yourself?

Are you tired of pretending you like the people you don’t?

Night_club Narciss_us considers the narcissist found in all. With a specific look into narcissism in sexuality, this piece attempts to reveal the vulnerability within such common narcissistic tendencies.

In Night_club Narciss_us She attempts to bring out the love triangle within herself, echoing what she has witnessed before her.

Martina Georgina (MG) was born on the Island of Malta, where she started a growing project Teatru Santwarju (2015) with the purpose to work with individuals who find sanctuary in building on from their deep fantasies and imagined realities. As director and performer of Teatru Santwarju she has collaboratively made original intimate works such as TS’s debut performance “Limbus!” (2016), TS’s latest performance “Lib(r)a” (2017) and short film “VANITAS” (2019) which premiered in Mexico for the FIDanzCA Festival 2019. All works where an attempt to explore the human condition, complexities and possibilities. As much as MG deeply appreciates the magic that comes from collaborative processes, she is at a moment in time where she would like to strengthen her independence and continue to challenge her autonomy as an individual artist. Hence Night_club Narciss_us being her first solo work.

Text: MARTINA GEORGINA with references from the poem “ECHO AND NARCISSUS” in OVID’S METAMORPHOSES. Music: Tangerine Dream and The Ronettes Special thanks to Keithy Kuuspu, Andreea Tudose, Agnes Oberauer and Marshall Stay

CLYTemnestra IVETA POLE / Latvia “All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both” Nietzsche

Clytemnestra was as a starting point for my research on the darkest, demonic manifestation of a woman’s nature. She can do both: give life and take it away.

She is a violent beauty. A woman, driven to extreme situations, where beneath the conventionally attractive facade something much more primal lives, dark. The death of Clytemnestra’s child sets the stage for the retaliation and extreme anxiety attached to sexuality: subtle, relentless and unforgiving. My interest was to explore issues of trauma, loss and madness set against the wild backdrop of emotional and sexual excess. Also, to investigate situations, where the familiar and known turns into the strange and uncanny; where the pious prayer becomes a witches Sabbath. The subject itself has an exact reference to Lars Von Trier’s movie “Antichrist”.

My interest also was in questioning historically set traditional social constructions of gender. Male characters primarily represent the brutality of the world: reason, authority and domination, while the women are often the embodiment of sacrifice, suffering and abnegation. The patriarchal power is what she rebels against. It is visceral, a vicious battle of the sexes, in which she holds the mark of the supernatural: Mother Earth, Mother Night.

Iveta Pole has earned her BA in Stage Acting at the Latvian Academy of Culture. She began her career in the New Riga Theatre, whose artistic director Alvis Hermanis is widely recognized for his theatre and opera productions. Being part of one of the most acclaimed acting troupes in Latvia was professionally challenging, yet enriching. Iveta has also appeared in many national and international movies.

Although her previous education and field of activity is rooted specifically in acting, Iveta always has been intrigued by interdisciplinary artistic expressions, which is why she sought to develop herself beyond the boundaries of the theatre and cinema.

Her interest has now shifted to exploring the unknown spaces between art disciplines and their set of rules.

Text: “THE ORESTEA” by AESCHYLUS, movie “ANTICHRIST” by LARS VON TRIER, Wikipedia Collaborators: LISSETE SIVARD (costume), MARSHAL STAY (video), LARS BORKER (photo) Music: Blondie, George Frideric Handel, Artjom Astrov

Happy days JOONAS TAGEL / Estonia

The starting point of this work has been inspired by Philoctetes and his time on the island of Lemnos in combination with the act of celebration. In the process, I have been looking at how humans have been able to create an environment in which we are the fastest and strongest. The reality, where we can hide our fragility. The reality, where we are continually waiting to experience something special. The reality, which is obsessed with things happening faster and faster. “Happy days” is trying to ignore this reality and start with nothing. And then wait…

“Happy days” is a homage to patience.

Joonas Tagel is a performance artist from Estonia. After graduating high school, he continued his studies in Dance Arts at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy (UT VCA) where he obtained his BA degree. During this period he also studied a year as an exchange student at Palucca Hochschule für Tanz (Dresden, Germany). Following graduation in 2014, he continued developing his craft by working on his artistic practice while participating in various workshops in Germany, Austria and Belgium and started working at the UT VCA teaching contemporary dance. As a maker and performer, he has been collaborating with many inspiring international companies and artists in around 15 productions. At the moment he is working as a contemporary dance teacher in Tallinn Ballet School, touring as a performer with performances “Fluids” (WAUHAUS & STL) and “Celebration piece” (Tallinn Dance Theatre).

A. space out of time SIMONA MEDOLAGO / Italy

Constantly divided in two, my Agave is both the queen and the Bacchae. Under the sun, she is everything and nothing at the same time; she is the blurred copy of what she could be. When surrounded by darkness, she becomes everything and more than everything, revealing the flamboyant image of passion and violence that nobody would expect.

It’s been said that time is supposed to heal any sorrow; everything passes and fades in the memories. But what happens if memories are the only thing left and sorrow becomes the only truth of life? Thirsty for life, in a constant need to transform her overbearing loneliness and sorrow, my Agave is always trying to find a way to put a stop to the only thing that will never stop, time. A mysterious ritual of creating space for something else. Something unexpected.

Born in Milan, Simona Medolago starts doing theatre in high school.

After her BA in Linguistic Mediation, she starts attending the vocational school for actors Centro Teatro Attivo in Milan, where she has the chance to study with teachers with varied backgrounds. After graduating she continues her studies in Italy and abroad with Jurij Alschitz and some of his students and collaborators from all over the world. In 2016, she takes part in the contest Scrivere per il Teatro where her text “Intervallo” wins the first prize. In the last few years, she has been leading theatre workshops in various middle and high schools and has been collaborating, as an actress and assistant director, with the cultural association Spazio Verticale.

Text: SIMONA MEDOLOAGO (inspired by ITALO CALVINO’S “THE INVISIBLE CITIES”)

Play of GOD; pray of God SEOHWON JI / South-Korea GOD: I pray to you... I’m a god. I always exist.

Here, there, everywhere.

HUMAN (Oedipus): Where should I go now...

I’m not a god.

So I always choose.

Here, there, anywhere, am I gonna be fine? Where should I go now...

Man lives with the destiny created by God. And humans pray to God. The prayer wants to have a personal relationship with the “absolute man” and wants “me” to be clung to the “absolute man” and be filled with himself.

Who does God pray to? God prays to humans. God brings us light and darkness and within a chance to capture the contents of God’s prayers. Humans, while making their choices, cannot hear those prayers.

Oedipus chooses a path that does not conform passively to his fate. Now it is me who is trying to decide what to make, what to create, and how to play. Which way shall I choose under the sign of destiny? I’m the one who stands at a turning point, thinking that it’s fate to be here. Wherever I am, whatever it is, I’m ready to play. This work is a poetic journey into the space between fate and pray.

Seohwon Ji was born in South-Korea and attended the Korean Traditional Art High School. Later he entered Chung-ang University where he studied major in singing and acting.

Collaborator: KADRI VAHAR (costume) Music: Alley Fantasy, Mika Vainio, Uhuhboo project, Byungki Hwang, Kim Yong Woo, (Jang Go) Shin Ji Yong, (Jing) Choe Chan Yong, ABOUT IT.

Hubris 12:4 [a hero’s journey] AGNES OBERAUER / Austria

“Hubris 12: 4 [a hero’s journey]” is titled after the 12 heroic deeds of Herakles and the four family members, his wife and three children, that he killed in a fit of what, in Greek times, was attributed to the goddess of madness and today would be coined a severe case of PTSD. The performance investigates the role of the hero and the contradictory expectations we have of them.

The hero’s mask sets the hero apart from the anonymous group of the chorus, but in no way makes the figure wear the mask an individual or psychological subject. On the contrary: the mask integrates the tragic figure into a strictly defined social category.

The conflict of the tragic hero must be fought out in public, submitted to the scrutiny and judgement of fellow man. (Vidal-Naguet)

We expect our heroes to be larger than life, to perform the impossible and remain human, bridging the gap between mortality and immortality, godlike perfection and human fragility. At the peak of his achievements the hero is placed on a pedestal, applauded, admired and, looked at. He becomes an object, a fetish, a trophy. Meanwhile the hero’s mask becomes a prison and inevitably the hero stops performing and starts losing his pace. What happens then? When the hero, whose role is to fight, to defend, to attack, returns home, what happens? What happens when the lights are out, and the game is over?

Agnes Oberauer is a theatre director and performance artist. She was born in Vienna and grew up in Russia, Ukraine and Austria. Upon completing her BA in Drama and Philosophy at the Royal Holloway, University of London, she moved to Germany to work as a resident assistant director and director at Schlosstheater Celle and Thalia Theater Hamburg for five years. During her time in Germany, she assisted internationally renowned directors such as Kornél Mundruczó. Jette Steckel, Christiane Jatahy, Ene-Liis Semper and Tiit Ojasoo. She also directed over ten theatre productions, most notably a multilingual version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (Schlosstheater Celle) and an adaptation of ‘The World of Yesterday’ (Thalia Theater Hamburg). She created immersive performance happenings, taught various workshops and led projects with children, teenagers and refugees. She received multiple awards for her multicultural artistic work. 2019 she founded an international immersive theatre company (www. instantgratificationcollective.com) and continues to work internationally as a freelance director and performance maker.

Text: HOMER, EURIPIDES, AGNES OBERAUER, CHRISTIANO RONALDO, LIONEL MESSI, DIEGO MARADONNA, DAVID BECKHAM, ANTOINE GRIEZMANN, JOHAN CRUYFF, EMINEN, K’NAAN AND OTHERS Music: Eminem, K’naan