InFormAtion / 2013
InFormAtion is the highest good in our networked society and communication the most
important vehicle. No difference if it’s a global enterprise, or a love relationship. But
communication can also mean manipulation - not only on the linguistic level. Physical
contact depends on the context, and can be invitation or forcing, a tone can sound
tempting or obtrusively. Karen Bößer`s InFormAtion is an interdisciplinary experimental
arrangement of dance, sound, light and stage art, that explores, whether we all notice
the same if we get equal information.
Choreography: Karen Boesser
Dance: Maaike van de Westeringh, Karen Boesser
Sound / Music: Ansgar Tappert
Stagedesign: Dirk Dietrich Hennig
Light-Architect: Hinrich Gross
Coach: Marie Goeminne
Performance Places: Forum Freies Theater
Sponsor / Funding: Department of Cultural Affairs, Düsseldorf, Van Meetren Foundation,
supported by Dansmakers Amsterdam
Coproduction: Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf, Germany
Production: Karen Boesser
- - -
Press review:
Rheinische Post / April 11,2013 / by Reneè Wieder
FFT invites to a charming Play
If you show fifty people exactly the same, they will see fifty fundamentally different
things. At the FFT the Düsseldorf dancer and choreographer Karen Boesser wants to tell
us something about the individual's perception during this evening. Consequently, the
audience at the premiere of her interdisciplinary dance piece "InFormAtion" is divided
into two spaces at the FFT. This is inventive. Every guest receives a slip of paper in their
hand, blue or red. Shortly after, everyone finds themselves with the assigned "colour
group" in the designated space and a wide plastic curtain separates the two parties from
one another. Karen Boesser and Maaike van de Westeringh dominate the stage with
ease, everyone in their own half of the stage. On a broad tapestry of sound, from
throbbing acoustic stimuli to guttural clarinet tones and deafening drum rhythms, the
dancer sway in a trance or march around like remote controlled toy soldiers. For a long
time, one just sees only one dancer directly in front, the other - captured by a wonderful
evocative lighting design - only as an outline on the plastic curtain. Both dancers seem to
be fixated on the contours of the adverse curtain phantom, full of curiosity to explore the
shadows behind the veil. Timidly they work them selves across the holes in the curtain,
then switch sides and seek one another. Finally, they break through for a final duet, half
romance, half trial of strength. Boesser points out the limits of our perception and the
then emerging loneliness, our longing for contact and how easily impressions can be
manipulated. Powerful and elegant analysed Boesser in her fourth FFT-production the
thesis that reality looks different for everyone. But her piece is one thing above all: a
feast for the senses.
title blog Sun, April 28, 2013 / by Verena Meis / www.titelblog.de (german)
(Com-) municated Information
Atmosphere: refrigerated warehouse. A diffuse background noise. The media channels
seem to crack: Is there such a technical fault, Mr. Tappert (sound Ansgar Tappert)? A
sterile curtain of white slats divides the stage and the audience in two parts (stage
design: Dirk Dietrich Hennig). In addition to the perceived acoustic "disruptive" noise -
information envy is spreading. Will I be deprived of important messages? Is the view
behind the curtain intentionally denied? According to the motto: Shared information
suffering is half information suffering? This is unthinkable in today's information society.
Where is the information overload? In front of the curtain a female body is forming from
the dark, which sends vague twitched impulses outward, as if she is infected with the
media noise. Who is acting on behalf of whom? Formed information, but which one?
Behind every gesture, every ray of light, every shadow and every noise seems to hide an
encrypted message that eagerly is waiting to be decoded. Or is it not?
Those who search for THE information, THAT objective message will be disappointed
during "InFormAtion" - an interdisciplinary experimental arrangement of dance, music
and light art by Düsseldorf choreographer Karen Boesser: together with the dancer
Maaike van de Westeringh, Boesser tarred at the FFT (Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf)
the relationship of sender and receiver new. Principle: Whispered information (“Chinese
whispers”). Misunderstandings seem inevitable. But be careful! Boesser and van de
Westeringh plead with 'information' but straight for polyphony. The individual reception
receives its legitimacy right here. Caution! The following objections are purely of a
subjective character: Although the solo resembles from time to time a wrestling match
with itself, the shadow reveals itself as a bird of paradise courtship dance. Matches the
pas de deux almost a physical duel, it can also shadow twosome harmony instead of
discord guess. If one also gives the (background-) noise its attention, it takes shape: we
hear a neon lamp buzzing, there is the sound of haunting drops on a water tap or the
reading of a hypertext.
Until the following audience discussion, it becomes clear that no one other than the
media philosopher Vilém Flusser reads the HTML text interspersed and that his
Kommunikologie plays no small role in "InFormAtion" - a lack of information that would
have facilitated the flow of information in the FFT. Theatre discourses are, according to
Flusser, "to make the recipients of distributed information responsible for this
information and mold them into future broadcasters." But not, if the information that is
to be sent, should be an objective ... Do not worry, at the FFT it is not the case! Karen
Boesser’s message is: Expose the appearance of the objectives! Confess yourself to your
subjective perception! Take responsibility for information that is sent or received!
Photos: Copyright by Dirk Dietrich Hennig 2013
