2011 Recap part 3: Turn the Page

My biggest design job of this past autumn was "Turn the Page" for bigNOTWENDIGKEIT. We were working on a theme of self-narration and the documents and momories people leave behind them. 



"Turn the page" brings five performers on stage to explore diaries, letters and pictures and the documentary traces left behind by five other lives. Out of these they try to create "ideal biography". Through the stories, they explore the strategies and mechanisms of self-narration and thus throw questions of self-construction, self-presentation and the ingredients for a successful thing perceived as life.

One of the early sketches

The first explorative phase took place in Zürich in October and from there we moved to Berlin in November.

All photos © Gerhard F. Ludwig / fotofisch-berlin.de

 

Zürich without a map

Today I went walking. In Zürich. Without a map. I had only some brief instructions from Ingrid on a piece of paper.

I do know how to get around in Zürich, been here for various times already. But this time I wanted to explore something new. And new things I found, indeed. One can never tell beforehand in what kind of exotic place one ends up if only wandering aimlessly =)

First I sloughed my way into a jungle,
where all the traditional pot plants grow high as houses.

(Apologies for the lousy quality of these photos.)

In the jungle I exchanged some intel with a very friendly tucan bird,
who just wanted to get closer and closer. Didn't bite me, though.

These guys just minded their own business and
paid no attention whatsoever to me.

The details of the fine designs of Mother Nature
just blew me away.

Spiraly wonders.

If you're into seeing such things personally, visit the Stadtgärtnerei, in Hubertus, ZH. Quite nice greenhouses and gardens. Also a good option for a rainy day, because of the indoors.

After the jungle experience I decided to familiarise myself with some samples of Zürcher contemporary art. For this I chose Helmhaus, which is presenting some new sculpture at the moment and located conveniently downtown Zürich.

The exhibition "AZB for ever" didn't move me at all. Or perhaps I'm just too thick to understand the finesse of sculptural art. Most of the exhibits were in my opinion very minimalistic and geometric forms with fancy names that didn't really connect. And the other end of the style scale was very detailed and bright colored genital figurines. This also continued in some of additional sketches.

So, if I put two and two together it seems to me that Swiss sculptors might have some serious issues about their sexuality or have difficulty thinking out of the box. This is totally personal impression and opinion, so don't take it too seriously. Check it out yourselves, rather =)

Very plastic and detailed. Jumped out of the collection.

Willies & co. aka "Get Physical" by Mickry 3

After Helmhaus I wanted to get a second opinion about art and found my way to Löwenbrau in Limmatstrasse. Kunsthalle and various galleries are located in these premises. But no major quakes on the emotional front there either. I ended up spending ways more time in a very decent artbook store they have there than prowling through the exhibitions.

All in all I think that my "Zürich without a map"-experience was quite enlighting in the end. And it gave me sore legs by the end of the day, so one can say I got at least decent excercise out of it. And after this my in-built citymap also got bit more connected and detailed. So why heck not to spend a sunny afternoon on following your nose?

Moodflow from Zürich

I've been in Zürich since last Sunday with our latest bigNOTWENDIGKEIT production "Keep on searching for a heart of gold". We are about to have five shows here within next week, starting tomorrow.

Nothing much happened since my last entry, but since I have some time to kill, I can contaminate some innocent minds with some moodflow.

It's been pretty relaxed and easy to set everything up in Fabrik Theater. At this particular moment I'm laying on top of a pile of mattresses in the foyer and waiting for a rehearsal on a monologue to end and run-through to start. The staff in the theater are all nice and friendly and I anyway like to work with this particular ensemble.

I've made some new friends while been here. It was pretty hairy to get myself a place to stay for couple of nights in ZH, because it seems that there is a "baby-boom" among my Zürcher friends at this very moment. So, my usual accommodation options were not available. And being forced to be innovative, I ended up at Ingrid and Claudio's home. This turned out to be a very big strike of luck in the end. These people are very nice and openhearted and they serve the best coffee in Zürich, so I'm very happy that I got to know them!!!

The weather is hideous since I don't remember when. I've never experienced such warm days in the end of April and so freaking cold in all May until now. I admit without any second thoughts that I've been wearing my long-johns the whole month up until yesterday. I just hate to freeze my ass off and see no reason to do that if not forced. And all this added to the notion that Finland is the hottest region in whole Europe at the moment. Go figure, something is rotten in climate...

But anyway, having spent most of the time in a black box lately, I don't really mind. Children of the darkness, I'll say.

Couple of days in Gessnerallee, Zürich

The end of last week was very surprisingly springlike with lots of sunshine and soft breezes. Therefore I had absolutely no problems going to Zürich and back again.

This time I was asked to help out a colleaque in realising his light-design, him being otherwise engaged. The production (by PVC) was called "Mütter.Väter.Kinder", directed by Sebastian Nübling and originally staged in Theater Freiburg, Germany. This time the piece was set-up in Theaterhaus Gessnerallee.

I have to admit, that I was a bit nervous going to Gessnerallee in the morning of the first get-in day. I had done my homework and seen the performance once in Freiburg, but still it was to be the first time to handle it on my own. -And there is quite a lot of equipment to rig-up. I wasn't so concerned that I wouldn't be able to do it, question was more about if I would be fast enough in instructing local crew. Especially, giving the fact that my German is far from perfect and I didn't remember all the details by heart. =)

Everything started smoothly, all of the fixtures were already positioned on stage in the morning and off we went rigging them to the truss-system. By lunch-time it was more or less done, thanks to very efficient house-crew. After the lunch the scenography was set on positions and we got to continue with lights after 17h. Even though the house-crew is just absolutely to be praised (big thanks especially to Jean-Pierre!), it took good five hours to focus everything. So it was somewhat long day, having to get up at 6.30 to catch a train. So you can imagine, that at 22.30 beer tasted really good in the theater restaurant! -And I was quite happy to have it too, since I managed to keep things in schedule.

After the first days' setting-up frenzy everything rolled without problems: I did corrections to programming during the rehearsals and then before and after the rehearsals we looked at the light-cues with director Nübling and set-designer Müller. To run the show is quite simple and I've always liked being the operator, so that was something I knew wouldn't cause difficulties. Once we got the cues right, it was just a walk in the park for me =) I even had time to go back to Basel on Saturday to help my friends to move into a new apartment.

On Saturday it was by far the nicest weather this year, so it was a perfect day to move. My friends had very little to move, it would have all easily fit into a normal van, but we did the move with BIG RED truck from Pepe Lienhardt big band. -Just because it was cool and the truck available. New neighbours were surprised to realise that suddenly everything is gone red outside their window and with a closer look one could see a huge saxophone. -we parked the truck on the sidewalk and covered their windows =)

After the move we went to nearby Kaserne to have some tapas for lunch. It was almost summerlike to sit outside in the sunshine and watch people go by. For anybody coming from Finland it's almost impossible to believe that in the end of February you can sit outdoors without multiple layers of clothes and burn your face. I believe temperature hovered somewhere just below +20'C. Not bad. After nice afternoon with friends, I hopped to train again ang headed for Zürich.

I'm so happy that all went so well in Zürich, in professional level. I learned to trust myself more by achieving this without having to cry for help. All the people were also so friendly, both with PVC and Gessnerallee, and I believe I made some new friends here. Would also be cool to have chance to work with both director Nübling and the venue Gessnerallee in the future, but time will tell about that.

Looking at the experience from purely personal perspective, I have to say that this one was among the nicest productions I taken part. I felt that people trusted me and my opinions. And somehow the families (a.k.a performers) on stage seemed so warm-hearted and took me in very friendly. I'm really looking forward to have chance to interact with these people again (and yes, Tobias, next time I'll bring extra pair of shoes too!).

For final words on this entry I would once more like to thank; first of all light-designer Andreas Grüter for offering me this opportunity, all the people of the production for such a good time and all the technicians of Gessnerallee for excellent 1A-class help they gave me.

Two adaptations of Darlings

I had the opportunity to do a light design for a bigNOTWENDIKEIT profuction called "Kill your Darlings". I already mentioned this in one of the previous posts.

Well, this is how it turned out to be... We performed with it on three venues: Schlachthaus in Bern, Fabrik Theater in Rote Fabrik, Zürich and also in Kaserne, Basel. In this post you can see, how very different can two venues look like although the medium of the light is basically the same: In Schlachthaus we performed on a tiny stage in the ancient stone-walled basement of the building whereas Fabtik Theater was three times bigger traditional black box. Kaserne ended up being somewhere inbetween. The premiere took place in Fabrik Theater, so this was the main target venue for the design also.

I realized that the atmosphere in these two versions was completely different. The room in the basement was somehow very present all the times, compared to the "non-spaceness" and void of the black box in Zürich. Being thightly surrounded by very organic surface as the stone-walls, makes the atmosphere very soft and somehow homey. In black space the scenography is somehow floating in the emptiness. I found both effects to be real cool, but they definitely change the mood of the performance.

See for yourselves!:

The beginning of the play "I'm not here."
Above Schlachthaus, below Fabrik Theater.

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Song: "Here's to You"

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"Grail & Andy"

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"Story of Nicola and Bart"


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"Am Grab - at the grave"


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"Ich bedauere... ich betrauere
-I'm sorry about... I regret"

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Towards the end:
Only light on stage comes from the drawers.

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Only the neon-tubes in the drawers are on.

Kill your Darlings
is:
Direction / Regie: Anna K. Becker, Katharina Bischoff.
Dramaturgy / Dramaturgie: Rahel Leupin.
Scenography / Bühne: Olivia Suter.
Light / Licht: Minna Heikkilä.
Artistic collaboration / Künstlerische Mitarbeit, Assistent / Assistenz: Stine Hertl.
On stage / Mit: Esther Becker, Anna Katharina Müller.

Updates...

After long recess, I have finally managed to update my website. There you'll find some new photos of the recent productions and also some funny video-stuff in the miscellaneous section.

Future looks interesting at the moment.

I'm working currently with a group called bigNOTWENDIKEIT on a project called "Kill your Darlings" which is going to open in the beginning of December in Fabrik Theater, Rote Fabrik, Zürich. Shortly, it's a performance for two actresses on the theme of all kinds of beloved ideas, that never fit anywhere before, wasting things and necessities, etc. I'm very curious how it'll turn out to be and how my darlings will fit in, if at all.

Another cool thing that awaits in the future is "Past is Simulation"-gig for the norwegian HerStay-company in Hong Kong. I should go there in less than three weeks. I'm excited, since I've never been in HK before.

Just before Christmas I will also make a short trip to Finland. I'm going to check out the rehearsals for the new Raatikko-production (and also tend to my dental appointment aughh =# ...)

So, I'll write more about how the things evolve and turn out to be when the time is right. Stay tuned, my friends =)