Improvisations from Berlin

The German ensemble Nico & the Navigators delivers on its promise of having created new theater based on improvisation. Interpretation, dance and vivid imagery go together in it to introduce a warped, surreal window into our everyday lives. A bittersweet, counter-intuitive and epically tinged portrayal of work and unemployment that reaches the highest heights of serious humor at its climaxes. Nico and the Navigators is one of the most creative independent ensembles from Berlin at the moment. It consists of architects, designers, sculptors, musicians and dancers.(...) The ensemble moves on the border of the genre of theater, where it has found its own original and minimalist style. Together with the slow rhythm characterized by repetition, the importance of body language to the point of exaggerated expression, its narrative style lives on powerful images of matte colors, together with minimal amount of text and a lot of music it manages to create an enchanting, playful and ironic way of storytelling. The ensemble's performances are at the same time tinged with magic, absurdity and comedy. And as it is so on this path between theater, dance and vivid images, Nico and the Navigators give the absurdity of life an unquestionable genius. "Eggs in Earth." The seven dance actors of this piece conquer the audience with a combination of charm and carelessness. Everyday rituals are de-emotionalized until they become something absurd and artificial. The people they portray could be taken from any international corporation. After initial confusion and disagreement, they repeatedly try to contact the unreachable Mr. Fock in the office, their boss. On the roof terrace they howl and outside the scene they can be heard laughing maniacally. For protection they wear atlases on their heads, they make a pepper mill dance, they wear white shoes and red briefcases, and chairs they use as pedestals. Before they make their first appearance, Mr. Fock already teaches them the first lesson they must learn to survive in the company, a lesson in the form of a danced speech that includes a sports shoe-cleaning session. The scenes go through several phases: Humiliation, subjugation, alienation, dependence and exploitation. Solemn interpretation To ensure that they also maintain their dignity, the characters remain as stern and stiff as the ties and hairstyles they wear. They only leave the silence when they formulate their little bittersweet sentences: "Don't listen to yourself like that. There's nothing there.", "I want to go upstairs! Do you want to go up, too?" The surreal observations are cleverly strung together. It is a dance of indecision presented in the form of a collage, of situations in limbo. A study, starting from the absurd, the irony and the mockery, of the most everyday and ordinary human behavior of today's man. The stage resembles a multifunctional installation, a magic box, from which acrobatic and scenic, visually impressive surprises come out in a seemingly miraculous way. Oliver Proske is its creator. This second piece of the trilogy could well be called Variations on the Theme of Modern Times 2000, because some connections can be made with the anti-heroes of the modernism of the 20s and 30s. As it happens in the works of these mythical modern artists, the possibility arises to take the despair of the wage-earners and raise it to even greater proportions, and this despite the emotional content of the situations, because the faces of the actors remain unwavering in any situation.

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