Elephant & You Should Have Seen Me Dancing Waltz

World premiere of YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN ME DANCING WALTZ

One of the most important artists on the world stage, the deeply political visual artist, director, and performer Rabih Mroué creates work for DANCE ON ENSEMBLE, with one of the evening’s two pieces making its world premiere at the Onassis Stegi, from 8- 10 November. Like a magnifying glass, the work of Rabih Mroué reminds us that trauma is universal.

“Elephant” oscillates between a sense of isolation and a yearning for human connection. Bodies move in labyrinth patterns, trying to reach each other in vain. Jumping backwards and forwards in time, they find themselves searching for moments of togetherness while at the same time experiencing the inevitability of loneliness.

His new work “You Should Have Seen Me Dancing Waltz” confronts the dancers with the news of our daily violence, natural disasters and politics. How do current events affect – and infect – the dancers’ bodies? What is their impact on a physical level? Do they change how we move? These questions will be negotiated in very personal ways, dealing with the impact of words describing their movements.

Credits

Elephant

Concept & Direction Rabih Mroué

In collaboration with Ty Boomershine and Jone San Martin (Dance On Ensemble)

Lighting Design Patrick Lauckner, Tanja Rühl

Sound and Composition Mattef Kuhlmey

Costume Sophia Piepenbrock-Saitz

Assistant to the Director Jacqueline Azarmi

Cast Ty Boomershine, Jone San Martin

Production DANCE N/DIEHL+RITTER

Coproduction HAU Hebbel am Ufer

Produced for the DANCE ON Festival with support from Hauptstadtkulturfonds

Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union as part of DANCE ON, PASS ON, DREAM ON

DANCE ON is an initiative by DIEHL+RITTER gUG funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

Premiere 28 February 2018, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2)

You should have seen me dancing waltz

Concept & Direction Rabih Mroué

In Collaboration with the Dance On Ensemble

Cast Anna Herrmann, Emma Lewis, Christine Kono, Marco Volta

Text Rabih Mroué in collaboration with Ty Boomershine

VoiceTy Boomershine

Lighting Design Arno Truschinski

Sound Mattef Kuhlmey

Costumes Sophia Piepenbrock-Saitz

Assistant to the Director Clarissa Omiecienski

Production DANCE ON/DIEHL+RITTER

Coproduction Onassis Stegi (Athens), Kampnagel (Hamburg)

Supported by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

DANCE ON is an initiative by DIEHL+RITTER gUG funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

Premiere 8 November 2019, Onassis Stegi

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We first met Rabih Mroué at the Onassis Stegi’s Fast Forward Festival 1 in 2014 with the lecture-performance “Pixelated Revolution” and the performance “Riding on the cloud”, two sui generis pieces about the explosive situation in the Middle East. We saw him again at the Stegi’s Fast Forward Festival 5 with the gripping lecture-performance “So little time”.

“You should have seen me dancing waltz” is a co-production of the Onassis Stegi.

About his latest work, which will make its premier at the Stegi, Rabih Mroué notes:

“This dance piece will investigate the idea of the wall in relation to a dancer’s body through the border-wall notions on the one hand and the skin of a human body on the other hand and both as a separation between the so-called ‘outside’ and ‘inside,’ between the ‘private’ and the ‘public,’ between ‘here’ and ‘there.’

The wall as a promise for providing us a shelter and security, a fence that protects us from enemies and from illness; from death.

The skin as a malleable wall for the body and rigid invisible border for traditions, taboos and habits.

When does it close and when does it open?

What thickness? What color of skin? What scars? What age? How does it change within time? When does it collapse?

Invisible walls inside the body and inside the city.

Resistance and time.

Dead thick skin.

The body of the dancer as a wall to project from inside to outside and from outside to inside; transparent with its opaqueness. Could it be true that the skin is a demarcation line between the out and the in? And if yes, then is there a war between the two sides? A civil war?”

Rabih Mroué

Rabih Mroué is an artist, actor and director who lives in Berlin and whose work merges visual art, performance, and theatre. Blending reality and fiction in his work, Mroué uses found documents, video footage, photographs, and objects to compromise the authority of archival evidence.

He is a co-founder and board member of the Beirut Art Center (BAC), a contributing editor to TDR: The Drama Review (NYC), and an associate director at the Münchner Kammerspiele.

He has had exhibitions at MOMA in 2015, at the Mesnta Gallerija in Ljubljana in 2014, at SALT in Istanbul in 2014, at CA2M in Madrid in 2013, and at DOCUMENTA 13. Rabih Mroué created three pieces with the Dance On Ensemble so far – “Water between three hands” (2016), “Elephant” (2018) and “You should have seen me dancing waltz” (2019).

Dance On Ensemble

The Dance On Ensemble was founded in 2015 by the Berlin-based cultural agency Diehl+Ritter gUG as part of the Dance On initiative that celebrates the artistic excellence of dancers aged 40+ and explores the relationship between dance and age both on stage and in society. Working with internationally renowned choreographers and directors including Rabih Mroué, William Forsythe, Deborah Hay and Jan Martens, the Dance On Ensemble is developing a repertoire of ground-breaking and challenging contemporary dance works. Its aim is to create a solid base for a rich and ambitious future repertoire for dancers 40+. As a member of the Dance On Ensemble since the beginning of the project, Ty Boomershine is responsible for its artistic direction since 2019.

DANCE ON is an initiative by DIEHL+RITTER gUG funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.