On the ludicrous enigmas of the world

Manual for the awkward daily intercourse with oneself Nico and the Navigators are exploring a new ease in the off-theatre-community The Free Troupes are having their centre in Berlin. The worse the situation for the traditional theatres, the more the off-theatres are growing and flourishing. Recently the most unique style has been developed by the ensemble of Nicola Hümpel, which is concentrating on absurd performances. It is touring through the whole of Europe. Forbach/Berlin „Le Carreau“, red cinema seats in an anonymusly looking, ugly space, is the sociocultural habitat at the most uninviting place: Forbach, the first village of Lorraine at the western periphery of Saarbrücken. Germans are remembered of the GDR by witnessing this distinctive urbanistic dreariness. And just here the most original, innovative and melancholic but still funny troupe of the German off-theatre-community is playing on two evenings, each time in front of about 500 spellbound, almost enthusiastically reacting people in the audience. This theatre, being a charmingly absurd project in opposition to a world without meaning and soul, unfolds pure enchantment at such a location, thereby letting everyone forget time and space. Originating from the Dessauer Bauhaus six years ago, they are now stars among the off-theatres in Berlin. And the amount of off-theatres in Berlin is higher and their connections and networks are denser than anywhere else. There are evenings in Berlin when the productions of the off-theatres are not only higher in number than the ones by the well-known traditional theatres but also more interesting. But also this has to be recognized: Without the gurus of the established art – in our case mainly Pina Bausch, Achim Freyer, but also the absurd comedian and director Jacques Tati – as a recognizable model they would not exist in this form. But “Nico and the Navigators” are having so much specific within their language, thereby enlarging the language of theatre, and so much elaborate ambivalent sense of style, that they should have been invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen a long time ago. The titles of the diverting sequences of scenes, which during their field study survey called “Menschenbilder” for the mysteries of a deranged everyday-life are following a surreal logic, are already the first promise preparing for the following tender, but lasting nonsense absurdities. „Ich war auch einmal in Amerika“ (I have also been in America), „Lucky days, Fremder!” (Lucky Days, stranger), „Eggs on Earth“, „Lilli in Putgarden“, „Der Familienrat“ (The family council) and now, totally unfounded, „Kain, Wenn und Aber“. Nicola Hümpel, the director of seven impromptu players with amazing acrobatic abilities, both physical and vocal, has her origins in the fine arts. The characters are chiselled accordingly, like sculptures, before they are setting themselves in awkward motion, either solitarily or in a chaos of communication, playing a trick on the rules of game and the rules of behaviour in this paralysed postmodern world. The aimless Navigators start to take course somewhere in the nowhere, out of the moment and for the moment. But they are doing this with a stubborn and playful-vague cussedness-of-the-matter-insistence which is systematically shaking the perception of the amazed audience. They are quite literally making the circumstances dance using the Free Will of Kant, right in accordance with Ernst Bloch. Just without any missionary impetus or any intense and forced philosophical superstructure. A self-sufficient, self-reliant, seductively flickering ease of being-that-way. The soundtrack being tender, the light being mild, the designed and styled tousle-hairstyles fixed aslant, the clothes not every time only on the body – and already the bell tolls adamantly, for we were meeting ourselves and, even more fateful, the matter. „Nico and the Navigators“ are now harboured in the Sophiensaele in Berlin. Nevertheless they are rarely in their harbour, but are happily cruising the courses of the international festival. The complex plays of words in „Kain, Wenn und Aber“ are always faithfully transposed according to the country, with perfect subtitles. In the off-theatre-community the absolute and precise perfection of the Hümpel troupe, concerning both their art and their craft, is quite unusual. On tour internationally After France there are already tours scheduled in the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, and probably in the inevitable USA. The off-theatre-community in the Sophiensaele, in the Podewil and now in the thrice distributed Hebbel theatre – those are advantages of location in Berlin, which are smartly kept alive by the senate of Berlin and the endowment fund of the capital. The rest of the theatres in Germany could learn a lesson of how to support great contemporary art by experimenting with small means…

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