Nico and the Navigators still exist

When Nico and the Navigators announced a year ago that they wanted to strike out in a new direction in the future, collective wailing broke out. Of all things, the pop stars of the German off-scene, who brought a new language to the theater, threatened to lose Berlin, Germany, and indeed the entire world after only five years. Fate proved to be merciful. The troupe is back, albeit with many new faces. And it is precisely this feeling, the fear that has afflicted their fans, that is now the subject of their seventh production "Helden & Kleinmut". The stage for the premiere is once again the Sophiensäle. From here, Nico, i.e. director Nicola Hümpel, and her performers navigate their way through the big, wide world. The long tours show interaction: with the new, international cast, additional languages and movement patterns come into play, and two musicians contribute specially produced live sounds. This results in further alienation effects in the play with images and meanings, with scenes and moods, which the Navigators continue to perform with virtuosity. Actually, it's like in therapy: you throw a term around and everyone tells what they associate with it. "Lucky Days, Stranger!" 1999, the breakthrough of the cult troupe, was about parting, "Cain, If & But" last year about decisions. Now everything revolves around fears, aberrations and alibis. And once again the ensemble confronts the audience with their childhood experiences. The platitudes that Lajos Talamonti spreads about the risks of life we have all heard, if not from parents, then at the latest from insurance agents. There is no such thing as a "strategy for a life without death and dying," as Christoph Glaubacker, like the "Watchtower," holds out to us. The Navigators show us how to deal with this realization, sometimes successfully, sometimes disastrously, with means ranging from quiet poetry to slapstick to violence. The Japanese Miyoko literally plays tricks with horror in her Harakiri parody. The French Anne Paulicevich gives the femme fatale, tenderness, which she wants to express in chansons, quickly turns into hatred. The technocrat Niels Bovri, on the other hand, believes he can master emotional abysses with sober noncommittalism. All this plays out in the cool, multifunctional design of stage designer Oliver Proske in rapid alternation, but mostly simultaneously. And yet, as always, the wonder of this troupe is that it becomes an artistically coherent whole that confuses but does not bore, that puzzles but does not overwhelm. And that earns well-deserved cheers.

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