If Sisyphus went to the office

The "Impulse" festival of off-theaters began with "Eggs on Earth!" by "Nico and the Navigators" from Berlin. Man carries a heavy load - on his briefcase: the Sisyphus stone in employee Hades, into which "Nico and the Navigators" pilot us when they get "Eggs on Earth!" rolling. Opening the "Impulse" festival at JuTA, we first see only half the person - the bottom half with legs in skirts or pants and shoes that it takes to set the poetry of a shoe shine machine in motion. The seven performers emerge from their multi-variable cube box, which Oliver Proske cleverly constructed as an elegant building set: accurately and correctly dressed office people who have internalized the rituals of the working world and now externalize them. A play with postures, states, constraints, problem positions, free exercises and disturbances: meditative, minimalistic, weightless, reduced and slowed down. As if an unpretentious Bob Wilson had set the tempo and Achim Freyer had designed the scene. A secretary leafs through papers; someone requests his appointment; a youth with aspiring hair lolls aesthetically in a chair. Suits hang in the air. Heads jam between chairs. The order of things and objects of use shifts by a small but decisive tic. It is a kind of slow-motion rampage, linguistically very sparing, artificially balanced, beautifully colorfully embellished and enriched by a permanent soundtrack. As if for a tea dance, the music plays and sings classically, Chopin and the "Valse triste" mourn, the Beatles lament "Eleonor Rigby", machines punch and rattle; the "Unanswered Question" arises. Nicola Hümpel's notes from reality store and rewind: Phrases of management, advertising and communication jargon, standard formulas like "Your process is being handled," pre-printed resumes, presentation programs. The brilliant ensemble sketches subordinates, underlings, up-and-comers, dropouts, failures, workaholics and specialists. One thinks that a soft-soft comic requiem is being performed in an enchanted fairyland or toy world, where career children play in guileless, amazed terror Whether we call it dance theater, performance, or surreal slapstick. The stage-image Polaroid is excellent everyday exposure. Mechanics meets psychology. This will have been another happy day!

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