“It must be”

Nico and the Navigators" and the Kuss Quartet have moved their Schwetzingen Beethoven project online. The first collaboration was "Muss es sein" 2018. "Force & Freedom" should now, as a "Staged Concert", according to the will of those involved, place the "music in the field of tension between external constraints and inner freedom", in which "Beethoven had to move and assert himself throughout his life". The result was to be a dialogue between dance, movement and light. Beethoven was to be played by the Kuss Quartet, which had just presented his string quartets in a CD production on Rubikon Classics. Among other things, Beethoven's String Quartet op. 135 was to be heard for "Force & Freedom." "It must be," which Beethoven wrote about a movement from it, was to provide an important anchor point for the performers. Autonomy and constraint should have been the two poles of the premiere, in which the Kuss Quartet would also have been scenically involved. Digital crisis diary The Corona crisis prevented the project, as well as the entire festival, from taking place; the premiere is to be made up for in 2021. Now "Nico and the Navigators" have reacted artistically to the situation with a digital crisis diary consisting of 29 video clips showing the personal sensitivities of the isolated members, their confrontation with the oppressive situation, and at the same time Beethoven's music. The group was founded in 1998 by Nicola Hümpel and Oliver Proske at the Bauhaus in Dessau. Until 2006 they were "artists in residence" at the Sophiensälen in Berlin. With "Eggs on Earth" the troupe was nominated for the Berlin Theatertreffen in 2000 and achieved an international breakthrough. In 2006, the company began to explore musical theater with projects based on Schubert, Handel, Bach, Purcell, Rossini and Mahler; in 2014, "Die Befristeten" was conceived with composer Detlev Glanert for the Munich Biennale. Philipp Boesman's "Reigen" followed for the Stuttgart State Opera. They countered the now somewhat loosening compulsion to isolate themselves throughout April with their Internet project, which is based in part on the preliminary work for "Force & Freedom". In contrasting video clips, the question of the stage project is related to the current situation posed by the coercive measures of the Corona crisis, reflected upon and commented on artistically. "Free and unbound" The interaction with the partners and the audience, which is no longer possible, is to be processed in this way, the longing, for what has been lost through the crisis, the common experience and reaction, commented on and accentuated. The motto of the first printed edition of Beethoven's "Grosse Fuge": "tantôt libre tantôt recherchée" ("free and bound") thus unintentionally takes on a very current meaning for the music theater group from Berlin. For the video clips, the already mentioned complete recording of the Beethoven quartets by the Kuss Quartet forms the inspiring musical basis. This digital diary cannot and should not replace what has been lost, it is also something like an artistic mourning work with many facets. At the end of this Internet video project there is now an extraordinary memory game, the parts of which have to be put together from a selection of the total of 29 clips. Freedom and constraint (of the rules) once again refer to the basic constant of the "Force & Freedom" project now planned for 2021.

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