Premiere: ...und raus bist du!

...und raus bist du! premiered Friday at the Opera House here in Kassel. I am still spinning from the ride, trying to catch my breath. It's an incredible piece to perform, and I enjoyed every minute of it. It's dark, urban, funny, brutal.





The piece deals with the theme of mental survival and the music is Bert Kaempfert's "feel good" music of the 70s, mixed with a live sound-design from the DJ, who's perched on top of a hanging glass box. More on the piece later - but in the meantime, here are a few photos and an excerpt from the first review.


"Just as DJ Christian Düchtel at the director's desk of sound mixes and feeds the World-Healing-Music of Bert Kaempfert, Wieland combines the misery of this world with secondhand luck. In his open, cinematic storytelling structure, one image hunts the next. Oppressive societal obligations, manipulations, a despairing life-greedieness, and gender roles filled with desire turn themselves into a wild, dancing explosion in the air: once as a solo, once as a duet, and still even in the last attempt, one lets the others fall. Closeness as fight.

Between crisis reports and emotional sensitivities, everyone finds his way alone, while still wanting to be caught up in the group. This is the dilemma of modern people, at which Wieland
takes aim. Better, preciser, more exact than ever before.

The 14 performers, in everyday costumes by Evelyn Schönwald, are virtuosos throwing themselves into the splits - animated creatures, trumpet players, fitness disciples, and down-at-the-heel dreamers who ask, as Elisabetta L. does, "Everyone is breaking apart, and I don't understand why." Ryan M. is brilliant in a solo of stored-up aggression, as are the playful and virtuosic duets of Evangelos P. and Brea C. / Meritzell E. and Esteban F., and all are glamorous in a Samba to the Kaempfert-Sound from a long forgotten world. Ah yes, life could be so beautiful - as long as one short dream."

-- HNA, 22 March 2009