Mahlermania: Nico and the Navigators – Porträt

The name sounds like a pop band: Nico and the Navigators. But Nico is not a singing siren, but the nickname of theater director Nicola Hümpel. Born in Lübeck, she studied first at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg and later at the Bauhaus Dessau with Achim Freyer, and realized early on that she was not at home in just one discipline. While still in Dessau, she founded the group Nico and the Navigators in 1998 together with stage designer Oliver Proske, her partner in life - and quickly put the ensemble on the road to success. "We are radical poets. We're not afraid to bring poetry to the stage - something many shy away from today," explains Nicola Hümpel, and it almost sounds like the group's manifesto. When Nico and the Navigators performed "Lucky days, Fremder" for the first time at Berlin's Sophiensaele in 1999, the audience rubbed their eyes in amazement. For here a new, immensely sensual theatrical language was formulated that combined language, movement, mimicry, sound, light, stage design and costume as elements of equal value. Nicola Hümpel, the border crosser between the arts, created a picture theater of absurd wit and wry poetry. Her performers, who had very different professional backgrounds, transformed themselves under her shaping hand into "full-body poets" who courageously catapulted themselves into all kinds of oblique positions, always acting with a choreographic precision. Like wide-awake dreamers, they often balanced on the edge of the abyss - rarely was failure celebrated with such grace as in Nico and the Navigators. They look like the grandchildren of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, for example, when they get into a fight with a shoe shine machine that suddenly takes on a life of its own. Oliver Proske's abstract housings quickly become a sophisticated multifunctional trap. They do not reveal their purpose, but change in use. But the Navigators are also famous for their idiosyncratic, sometimes abstruse art of formulation. They invent games almost without words, but the wondrous sentences with their twisted Dada logic seem like coded messages. They mark out the horizon of non-understanding and create a kind of clairvoyant confusion. In this way, Nico and the Navigators dislocate the perception of the world, make the senses dance - and they do so with a playful lightness, a tender mockery and a gentle melancholy, which always delights the audience anew. Nicola Hümpel knows how to effectively stage the idiosyncrasies of her actors. "I study my Navigators to the core," she says with a smile. With her enigmatic images of space, sound, movement and language, Hümpel wants to open up "landscapes of thought." Her pieces always revolve around the exploration of human behavior. Everyday rituals are alienated, processes are driven into the artificial and absurd. The graphic clarity of the stage design contrasts with the floating states. Nico and the Navigators celebrate a theater of slowness that thrives on the art of reduction and omission. The ensemble has developed a special editing technique for its scene collages. "In visual art, I was particularly interested in the cut. In a sculpture, I look for the moment of greatest tension and make a razor-sharp cut. In doing so, I give the viewer the opportunity to continue the line in his or her own imagination." Nico and the Navigators' theater relies on the co-producing imagination of the viewer. It constantly lays out new tracks - and refrains from any rash explanations. The actors navigate with pleasure into the unknown. In the past, it sometimes happened that the director slipped a small piece of paper with a brief instruction to an actor before the performance began. The Navigators have always been experts at this form of free play, which requires a high level of concentration, a clear sense of rhythm, and a stupendous presence of mind. Today, Nico and the Navigators are not only one of the most original free groups from Berlin - they have also earned international fame, especially with their music theater productions. The fact that they have been increasingly turning to musical theater for several years is no coincidence. "In a way, this takes me back to my beginnings," she says with a smile. Nicola Hümpel attended a music high school in Lübeck and learned to play the violin. In her parents' home, she came into contact with classical music at an early age, as her father is a passionate Wagnerian. It is above all the power of singing that she raves about: "It can take us into the here and now and show us something that we have lost. That's what attracts me to singers." In 2006, Nico and the Navigators collaborated for the first time with the music band Franui for Wo Du nicht bist; the production made the music scene sit up and take notice. It was followed by Although I Know You, a smaller project for four actors, a violin and a piano. The pastiche opera Anaesthesia, which premiered in 2009 at the Handel Festival in Halle, quickly became a hit piece. A year later, as part of the 2010 Handel Festival, Nicola Hümpel presented her acclaimed production of Orlando at the Halle Opera. In 2011, the ensemble devoted itself to Rossini's Petite messe solennelle. The staged version of the mass, which premiered at the Kunstfest Weimar, turned out to be a triumph. The performance proved that Nico and the Navigators have expanded their musical resources; it also delighted with its idiosyncratic art of interpretation. Between Kyrie and Sanctum, the Petite messe solennelle deals with questions of faith in a most enjoyable way: What role does religion play today? What substitute rituals does man create for himself, who strives for something higher than the mere administration of life? When Nico and the Navigators now release the world premiere Mahlermania in November, it will be a debut in two ways. For the first time in its 15-year history, the ensemble is collaborating with a Berlin municipal stage. With the Mahler homage, the company is also inaugurating a new Deutsche Oper venue: The "Tischlerei." The former carpentry workshop has been converted into an experimental stage. Here, opera, dance, performance and theater are to meet in a new way. The start with Nico and the Navigators is promising, as the group has brought a breath of fresh air to musical theater with their playfulness and sense of style. Nicola Hümpel is proud of her ensemble's independence - it's the only way to ensure a continuous research process, which is how she sees her work. "We have so far turned down almost all offers from opera houses because we didn't want to give up our working methods," she explains. But this time the conditions are right. Besides, it excites her to address a different audience. "The theater view is not the only valid one for our work," she emphasizes. And she appreciates the music lovers as a very sensual audience. They will maintain and develop their working methods in this first co-production with Deutsche Oper, Nicola Hümpel emphasizes. The five Navigators, actors Patric Schott and Annedore Kleist and dancers Anna-Luise Recke, Ioannis Avakoumidis and Philipp Repmann, will be assisted by three singers: baritone Simon Pauly and the two mezzo-sopranos Katarina Bradic and Clémentine Margaine, who will sing alternately. Singers, actors and dancers embody different facets of Gustav Mahler and of Alma, the beloved, wife and muse. "As is traditional in our work, we will explore together - this exploration, in addition to exploring Mahler's life, consists of making his music sound in our bodies today and looking: What emotional states and images does the music evoke in us? What modes of expression emerge? All productions of Nico and the Navigators are developed together - this has not changed until today. Nicola Hümpel calls her method guided improvisation, which she now teaches at various institutes, such as the renowned Otto Falckenberg School or the August Everding School in Munich. The group improvisations often revolve around complex themes and questions such as farewells, friendship, work, things or faith. In the joint search process, everyone is allowed to spin off - and often the Navigators fall into a creative frenzy in which they inspire each other. For the classically trained singers, working with Nicola Hümpel is often a challenge. For they are not only expected to deliver their vocal part, they are involved in the creative process from the very beginning and are also challenged in a completely different way in terms of performance. Hümpel encourages the singers to find their own physical expression. She never forces them into a role type, but encourages them to free themselves from shackling conventions. Meanwhile, it has proven effective for performers and singers to do physical training together every morning. "I've observed: If the body is authentic, the voice is also strong," Hümpel says. With Mahlermania, Nico and the Navigators are once again expanding their artistic radius. They approach the important composer by focusing primarily on his song oeuvre - and at the same time explore the flights of fancy and the abysses of an entire era. "What I find exciting about Mahler is his brokenness. He clings to old values, but already sees modernity coming. The question arises: how much self-betrayal can one engage in, and where must one remain true to oneself?" Nicola Hümpel put together the songs for Mahlermania together with dramaturge Jörg Königsdorf. Of course, the romantic idylls of "Wunderhorn" and the intimate "Rückert-Lieder" will be heard. However, she begins the evening with "Abschied" from "Das Lied der Erde" and looks back at Mahler's life from the end. "In 'Abschied,' you notice that Mahler's music no longer pushes, no longer fights, no longer forces anything; it is grounded and the composer seems to have returned to himself," Hümpel explains. But she does not have a biographical treatise, a station drama in mind. "We first let the power of his music work and then look for the reason for this power."

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