Disabled Theater

Photo: Hugo Glendinning

Jérôme Bel is a choreographer who has—literally--made history. By placing the structure of the live spectacle under the microscope, he called every given into question with a heady mixture of humor and seriousness, deconstructing the conventional relationship between performer, audience and the material being performed. Ever controversial, he has created this, his latest performance, in collaboration with the HORA theater, a company of professional actors with mental disabilities from Zurich.

In the wake of a series of works which shed light on the relationship between the public and private lives of a number of significant contemporary dancers, Bel now takes a tender, sensitive look at the lives of the individuals on stage. The eleven actors, who are aged 18 to 51, are given free rein to react freely, individually and often humorously to his instructions. Their uniqueness, their weaknesses and their sensitivities serve, ultimately, to spotlight the universality of human nature. The work treats disability honestly: not as something to be hidden behind the curtain of political correctness, but as a part of life with aesthetic and political extensions. Brutally revealing and profoundly political, the work has received a mix of hostility and praise wherever it has been performed.

Credits

Concept
Jérôme Bel
By and with
Noha Badir, Remo Beuggert, Gianni Blumer, Damian Bright, Matthias Brücker, Nikolai Gralak, Matthias Grandjean, Julia Häusermann, Sara Hess, Tiziana Pagliaro, Fabienne Villiger, Remo Zarentonello
Assistance and translation
Simone Truong, Chris Weinheimer
Dramaturgy
Marcel Bugiel
Assistant to Jérôme Bel
Maxime Kurvers
Production manager
Ketty Ghnassia
Artistic director of the Theater HORA
Michael Elber
Theater HORA actor training
Urs Beeler
General manager of the Theater HORA
Giancarlo Marinucci
Translation
Giannis Kalifatidis
Thanks to
Sasa Asentic, Tom Stromberg, Andreas Meder (Internationales Theaterfestival OKKUPATION!), Stiftung Züriwerk, the Fabriktheater Rote Fabrik Zürich and the audience at our public rehearsals, and the Zuschauerinnen und Zuschauer der öffentlichen Durchläufe
Production
Theater HORA - Stiftung Züriwerk (Zurich)
With the support of
Stadt Zürich Kultur, Kanton Zürich Fachstelle Kultur, Pro Helvetia, Stiftung Denk an Mich, Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Co-production
Theater HORA, R.B. Jérôme Bel, Festival AUAWIRLEBEN (Berne), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), dOCUMENTA 13 (Kasel), Festival d'Avignon (France), Ruhrtriennale (Germany), Festival d'Automne (Paris), Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris), La Bâtie – Festival de Genève (Switzerland), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin)