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Requiem for a piece of meat

How is it possible that, in our perception, our bodies appear as something fundamentally different from the ham in our sandwiches? Meat is culture, on our plates as well as on our bones. It is inscribed with countless traditions and rituals which manage to simultaneously fascinate and repel us.

Requiem for a piece of meat examines the material of meat beyond commonly agreed hierarchies and body economies. Under the direction of Daniel Hellmann, a group of dancers, vocalists, instrumentalists and two pigs have gone through a joint working process that unwinds the traditional order of bodily functions and assignments. Dancing, tripping, groaning and grunting, they transform the stage into a space of interspecies encounters. Who here is animal, human, thing? How free can we be?

The supposedly clear distinction of human and animal existence starts to flicker. A meticulous, sensuous and critical study of body pictures forms up into a Requiem in seven movements. In an artificial naturalist idyll, mountains of meat and moving limbs interweave themselves with musical languages from several epochs. A commissioned work by the young composer Lukas Huber confronts the historical material with the sound of intestines, the voices of animals and the musicality of their processing. Poetry and objectivity. A farewell to allegedly established categories. A funeral mass in the midst of life.

Credits

By and with: Braulio Bandeira, Giovanna Baviera, Géraldine Chollet, Heamin Jung, Lena Kiepenheuer, Krassen Krastev, Florencia Menconi, Rui Stähelin

Concept / Direction / Choreography: Daniel Hellmann
Musical Concept: Abélia Nordmann, Lukas Huber, Daniel Hellmann
Dramaturgy: Johanna-Yasirra Kluhs
Stage Design: Theres Indermaur
Costume Design: Valérie Reding
Musical preparation: Abélia Nordmann
Sound Design: Lukas Huber
Light Design: Ursula Degen
Lighting: Anna Lienert
Scenic collaboration: Nacho
Oeil extérieur: Jessica Huber
Assistants: Quentin Barthassat, Antonia Krämer
Production: Larissa Bizer
Diffusion: Florence Francisco

Music by: John Dowland, Lukas Huber, Marin Marais, Tarquinio Merula, Gérard Pape

A production of 3art3 Company & novantik project basel
In coproduction with Gessnerallee Zürich, Theater Chur, Gare du Nord Basel, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne & Nationaltheater Mannheim. In cooperation with Tanzhaus Zürich & Théâtre Sévelin36 Lausanne
With the support of Stadt Zürich Kultur, Kanton Zürich, Fachausschuss Musik BS/BL, Pro Helvetia, Migros-Kulturprozent, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Christoph Merian Stiftung, UBS Kulturstiftung, Sophie und Karl Binding Stiftung, Fondation Nestlé pour l'Art.

Distinguished with the June Johnson Dance Prize.


Press

L’homme est un cochon comme les autres / Le cochon est un homme comme les autres., Carnet d'Art, Kristina d'Agostin, 28.04.2017
Ein Seelenamt der schockierenden Art, Badische Zeitung, Nikolaus Cybinski, 07.04.2017