Press reviews

Perhaps due to plain enchantment we have not understood: The beautiful and the daring that we were able to see in the united city (whether from here or imported), came to be through the interplay of the Arts. Some examples: Christoph Marthaler with “Murx den Europäer ab”, Alain Platel’s “Iets op Bach” (…). In “D‘avant” two dancers from Sasha Waltz’ Berlin troupe join with Alain Platel’s Gent Troupe to make a piece where the only sound consists of the marvellous a cappella singing of the four dancers. And only in these last weeks at the Sophiensaele, Nico and the Navigators gave an account of modern loneliness in counterpoint to Schubert’s music of loss (…)
Nico’s “Wo du nicht bist” (dort ist das Glück) has no author, no director, who before the start of rehearsal specifies each action to the players. The work method is called and is “Conducted Improvisation” – a group development in almost mimic gestures, in French, Japanese, Dutch, German, English interaction, which we unravel little by little. Such work practices are contemporary. Often this teamwork resembles the small Research and Development groups arose with the computer avant-garde in Silicon Valley. And always they resemble the historic, creative forms of European Theatre (Commedia dell‘Arte through Shakespeare to Molière’s companies) which was a Theatre of troupes. (…) The single identifiable author of “Wo du nicht bist” is Franz Schubert.

…It all unfolds in the rapid interplay between slapstick and pose, wild frolic and sad pauses – surprising changes of mood create the comic effect. The spectator does not come away scot-free: lines like “You work and work only because you lack the talent for happiness” certainly can be painful. Happiness is thus not liveable. Because we strive for the big happiness we often disregard the little ones. Sometimes an evening in the theatre counts among the latter. This one should not be passed over…

…asking questions is already an art in itself. And in it, the stars of the off-theater scene demonstrate absolute virtuosity. Now again, in their play about happiness… Franui, the East Tyrolean music group with whom the Navigators are working together for the first time, plays Schubert – with the instruments of a village band. “Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”, a line from Schubert’s song “Der Wanderer” was the inspiration for the title of the piece…

… God has kissed this troupe on the forehead. (…) “There where you are not, that’s where you’ll find happiness”. The eight actors ponder this in German, English and French, and thus develop, thoughtfully, playfully, flippantly and comically, out their own personalities, a happy, brave yet humble, exceptional kind of theatre. There are no assertions, no demands, only a marvelling, inquisitive probing of the self and the world. (…) What has here arisen by means of Nicola Hümpel’s direction, of month-long common invention, getting a feeling for and testing out, is a tableau of thoroughly contemporary romanticism. No Biedermeier attitude that sticks, in its own home, its head graciously and hungry for knowledge in the sand, instead a thoughtful poetry, a playful melancholy, a treat for heart and brain, that lights the way to a picturesque future. (…) Nico and the Navigators locate the sorrow for the absence of and the hope for the happiness desired, and the proximity of life and death, in conjunction with the nine marvellous musicians of “Franui” who originate from a mountain village in East Tirol. (…) A little soirée bringing great joy to the enthralled spectator – worth the journey.

This is the biggest project that the Navigators have so far navigated – and it is a triumph! Together with the marvellous Tirolean group Franui they have developed a piece about happiness, and Franz Schubert, the Great Misery himself, is godfather.(…) “You work and work because you lack the talent for happiness” someone says on one occasion, and immediately you feel caught. This is a serious piece, but there are wonderful moments of freedom and yes even joy as when someone springs stark naked in the air, like a postal pigeon or an eagle; and when everyone knows in the end that “most likely each one of us is as happy as he has decided to be”; or, drawing on Thomas Bernhard, the dialectic is everything: “He was afraid to lose his desperation”. Happiness can be its very opposite. “Wo du nicht bist” is a small masterpiece of poetry and defiance.

…For Nicola Hümpel, Schubert is a dear friend. “Schubert’s music is the fusion of happiness and unhappiness, the undefined state in the now”…. The fact that Schubert finally became the explicit subject of Navigators is due to the fact that at some point Nico inevitably had to put an end to his ghosting around and explicitly include him in her own discourse of the shredding of the ego, the fragile possibility of longing, and the question of how the outer and inner worlds are connected….