We are all waiting. For something. Or for someone. For example, for the bus, the train, the break, a message, for Christmas. Waiting is stupid. It sucks. You know that!
The Wait explores waiting in all its facets. To do so, we asked kids and adults about how they deal with waiting. ("Waiting is stupid to the power of 10", "Waiting is boring"). We founded the Institute for Waiting and invented various things: A waiting machine, a waiting app and searched for the best places to wait (number 1: hanging out in a tree and looking at the sky).
Can we wait better now?
(Different answers - depends on the day)
Mmmhhh, yes, sometimes.
Absolutely.
No, not today.
I'm Wartist.
Phew difficult.
What! The train is late today?
Logo. Free time, totally awesome!
How does waiting work on stage though? Do audience members wait for the beginning? Do the performers wait for the audience? Does nothing happen at all? Does the song wait for the dance to end? Is the word waiting for the movement? Are you waiting for me? How long do I have to wait until all the chairs are stacked? When will it be spring? And do all the waiting loops dissolve at the end?
All we can say is: Wait it out (wait it out), because those who can wait well have it better!
The Wait is a dance performance for an intergenerational audience. It explicitly focuses on the fact that children and adults share a world that they can create and change together. The need to open up this space in art as well, by having multi-generations share a piece that deals with issues that concern everyone, seems conclusive from this perspective.
The dance performance Die Warte approaches waiting from its philosophical dimension in its exploration. Waiting as a state of engagement with something unknown, as active idleness. In a time of increasing rationalisation, of having to function (both children at school and adults in jobs, families, etc.), of control and surveillance, this seems to be a counter-model of being. At the same time, critical time diagnosticians suspect that waiting is dying out. In an age where every need must and can be met immediately (the term instant gratification attests to this), waiting seems unbearable for many. And so we distract ourselves, filling empty time with surfing, chatting, playing.
But we suspect that it is precisely the waiting, the enduring, the doing nothing or doing something in a long while, that produces a state that is of enormous importance in its quality. To expose oneself to the unknown in order to create a free space in thoughts and perceptions beyond prefabricated images and consumer offers. The emptiness of the time we call waiting inspires fantasies, mind games and daydreams.
Idea, direction, text, direction, choreography: Mareike Buchmann
Performance, stage, costume: Mareike Buchmann, Mirko Danihel
Sound: Mirko Danihel
Dramaturgical assistance: Karl Kiesel
Text source and more information about this event at:
http://www.landungsbruecken.org/en/program_actual.php?g524=41&f524=0&g526=41&f526=0
