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

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