Aside – Mojo Club, 150% Made in Hamburg Theaterfest

The location is the Mojo Club, Hamburg. The performance part of the 150% Made in Hamburg Theaterfest. The expected audience are hip, young, experimental theatre culture creatives. The expected performance, a multi-media, ultra-experimental, cutting edge new music extravaganza.

This high gloss facade is created with a video-art backdrop, extravagant costumes and make-up, live-electronics, O-tone recordings, live instruments and loopers.

The ultra-hip entrance and overture establish expectations and prejudices. From a high gloss performance a certain perfection, professionality and mystique is expected. There are many unspoken rules for how a performance should be and how a performer should act on stage.

However soon cracks begin to show and the facade begins to crumble revealing what lies beneath. The performance enters unchartered territory, exploring how it feels for the audience and what kind of atmosphere is created when the unwritten rules are no longer followed. What happens when the technical equipment malfunctions, when the performers have a black out, when personal problems appear, when the performers egos clash or when they lose themselves in the labyrinth of artistic jargon.

The tension created by this apparent loss of control is slowly released as the problems become the important and recurring elements of the performance. The failures are integrated into the works, choreographed and ordered. Worrying mistakes from the beginning recur again, this time in patterns, rhythmic or ordered creating material for the musical works. The unintended becomes a creative force, accepted or even encouraged.