Nico and the Navigators in an anniversary frenzy: “sweet surrogates”
Link to the feature: https://www.rbb-online.de/rbbkultur/radio/programm/schema/sendungen/der_tag/archiv/20231214_1600/kultur_aktuell_1645.html
Cultural apocalyptic mood as the starting point for "sweet surrogates": a mysterious carpet of music, on the large screen above the stage a video image mixture of billows of smoke and a grey, lonely winter road. And a poem about art as an intoxicant (...) Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote it, the sonnet is called Künstlerweihe. And the actor speaks it as if it were written for the abysses we are facing today. The world, shaken by violence and crises, there seem to be no certainties.
[Nicola Hümpel:] How do we deal with this, what can we still tell in the space, in the art space? [Nicola Hümpel, Artistic Director] And sometimes our strength dwindles and we see what is happening out there and feel small and powerless.
Can "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" help? The song is sung almost like a question. And the rhythmic twitches of the two singers, dancers and performers on stage are not an answer at all.
[Nicola Hümpel:] The big question that stands above everything is, can art still seduce us or not?
She can, with a drama that makes you drunk. The singer sings her aria with such intense expressiveness, zoomed in on the screen, that the two performers, whose hair she is ruffling, are completely befuddled.
[Nicola Hümpel:] It's a great longing to work with singers in such a way that they can really sense and feel and live the music within themselves and make their own personal film - and I think that's the only way we can really bring the classical music we love so much into the present day.
The piece: a collage of emotional states, expressed through the images that dance, singing, acting, video and, again and again, carefully dosed words create on stage. Despite constant breaks in the music, the five musicians tie everything together organically and are themselves constantly involved in the play. Dancing themselves into a frenzy, then writhing as a tortured creature, coming together in a group or throwing themselves at each other in a frenzy of blood. Or all alone, desperate. The pianist at the piano, he feels the piece - you can see that in his eyes, projected large on the screen.
[Nicola Hümpel:] It's a very touching scene for me, because Matan comes from Israel and carries this tragic story within him. And when we did it in the rehearsal room, I really burst into tears because I saw everything reflected in his eyes.
The others on stage pause, observe, take part. This is also a spontaneous reaction from the rehearsals, captured in the play. So what can save us? There are no answers, we can't find them in distraction, substitute religions or ecstasy. As intense as the experiences may be, we can only live again and again, on and on. A beautiful image of this is when the dancer turns slowly on the floor and, filmed from above, it looks as if he is walking in circles. Completely relaxed, and then faster and faster, as if he were disappearing into a whirlpool. And it's these emotional sculptures of image, movement, facial expressions and music that stick with you.
[Nicola Hümpel:] We can't make political speeches, the mouthpiece we have is music, is the body, is the soul. And that's what we talk to and that's what they do to each other on stage and that's what they do to the audience.
A plastic bag twisting in the wind, the dancer doing the same. Sheet music swirling around - artistic chaos as a reflection of the chaos of the world. And sung very timidly, almost like a question: Here comes the sun...