“You think more calmly” – The theater and opera director Nicola Hümpel about her retreat in the Uckermark region

More than 20 years ago, Nicola Hümpel and her partner Oliver Proske founded the music theater project Nico and the Navigators. Even though Berlin is their home, they also rehearse in Melzow in the Uckermark. Cornelia Jentzsch met Nicola Hümpel there. Ms. Hümpel, how did you and your partner come to the Uckermark? That was a good ten years ago now. We fell in love with this landscape. Probably because Oliver comes from southern Germany and I come from northern Germany - and the Uckermark with its slightly hilly terminal moraine landscape offers a mixture of both. I find it beguilingly beautiful here. This is exactly the place where we can regenerate and concentrate well. Nicola Hümpel Did you first discover the landscape and then the house, or was it the other way around? We were regularly here in the region with friends in Groß Fredenwalde, drove around and looked at many places. At some point, we were taken with the special little village of Melzow. There was this restaurant here that nobody wanted because it was so ugly and big and seemed unheatable. It was on a real estate website for ages until we took it on. We are grateful for the large space. We use it both as a costume store and workshop, we have parties here, and above all we can work well. How different from the city do you work here in the country? Our Berlin office is practically in the apartment building where we also live. That means work and private life are closely intertwined. A couple working together is always at risk of getting lost between tasks. We are not only artists, but also producers of our own company. In Berlin, we are very much taken over by our employees. There is a lot of office work, logistical, technical, tour and financial planning, public relations, artist support - all of which needs to be dealt with. In the Uckermark, we can retreat very well when it comes to researching content. Here we can think about projects together - in other words, how we want to work in a dialogue between set design and direction. Does the landscape inspire you? Definitely. You think more calmly, more prudently, more essentially, which also means more existentially. In addition, this region is increasingly inhabited by interesting people who come not only from our own field of work, the theater. Exciting, intellectual and lovable people with whom we like to exchange ideas about politics, society and current events. If you only go around in your own circle, i.e. very technical, that's rather a danger. Aren't there far more opportunities to meet in a big city like Berlin? For example, at your spectacular music theater performances? It makes a difference whether I talk for 20 minutes over a glass of wine in the foyer or use this endless quiet and time for a conversation, as in Melzow. You can certainly discuss things on the terrace for three hours, especially if visitors stay overnight. But the essence is nature. If you look at yourself in relation to nature, the importance shifts and with it the exaggerated importance that you often attribute to yourself and your own work. In view of nature and transience, many things become relative. Nature is also a bit like the theater. In gardening, you can't force a plant to grow in a certain direction. One is rather happy about what thrives and blossoms, and encourages and supports it. If something doesn't thrive so well, at some point you let go of your ambition and accept. I work in a similar way with my theater ensemble, I don't force anything, I just let the blossoms that appear flourish. Perhaps this process, which we have been using for 20 years, is our secret recipe. We take advantage of the artists' strengths and don't commit much in advance. People always say that the countryside has less cultural offerings than the city - what do you think of the cultural offerings in Melzow? With the great readings and summer concerts, we have a cultural program in Melzow that is perceived quite differently than the offerings in culturally overcrowded Berlin. The enthusiasm is shared, and there are subsequent discussions. In other words, here people process with a different kind of attention. What are you working on right now? During the Christmas vacations, I prepared three plays in Melzow. One is "The Barber of Seville," I'm working on a new opera version that will be produced this year. The premiere is in January 2020 in Hanover. Rehearsals just started for the second project, it's our dance of death project "Nobody dies in the middle of their life." It's about ecstasy, intoxication and death dances in music. We chose music that deals with this theme - from early music to pop. In addition, there are texts and acting as well as performative elements, and there are again two dancers. The piece will be shown in April at the Konzerthaus in Berlin. In addition, we will be showing "Der Verrat der Bilder" (The Betrayal of Images) in September at the Kolbe Museum in Berlin, an installation with four actors to mark the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus.

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