After these long months of not being able to have cultural events due to the pandemic situation, we are more than happy that now we could present two our results of the Art & Science collobarion.
In February there was a first presentation of the music piece “Choreatmosphere: spatial intuitions of energy” by Victor Ernesto Gutiérrez Cuiza aka VictorPiano. The multimedia composer worked closely together with our TRR PhD candidate Valentino Neduhal. This 20 minute piece is divided into five smaller movements. Valentino and Victor created a very atmospheric piece with data from Valentino and his supervisor Prof. Nedjeljka Žagar.
In a room full of speakers in a 360 degree arragement at Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg we listened to the composition that also included a live performance of flute player Gabrijela Sušek. Currently victor is working to transfer the piece to a stereo system, so that it´s possible to listen to it also without this very specialised 360 degree speaker system. The audience was touched and fascinated after each of the three presentations – Nedejljka even said she could hear the gravity waves – that is of course the expert scientist speaking, but it was incredible fascinating to hear the sounds moving through the whole room. We hope now to be able to present this piece to a wider audience again some time.
„Die weiße Wand“ at Thalia Theater
End of April then there was finally the presentation of theatre play “Die weiße Wand” at Nachtasyl in Thalia Theater in Hamburg – director Woody Mues developed together with writer Peter Thiers and TRR member Luby Bing aka Bing-ying Lu from University Bremen the play: „Die weiße Wand“. It was an evening of storytelling. About seaman’s yarn, monster waves and the question of whether we meet in fiction or in reality. Increasingly drunk, barmaid and sailor try to find each other. Lies and truth wrestle with each other – until the wave breaks. It was a full success – sold out for the premiere it was a good start into the evening. In a long queue on the stairs to the rooftop club in this beautiful building we waited in line to check in to the event. It was still under corona restrictions, so wearing the mask except while you are drinking was mandatory. Around 80 people gathered in Nachtasyl – that is a place with a bar, where usually plays or club nights take place. Actors Cathérine Seifert and Max Kurth gave an incredible intense and at the same time humorous performance.
Looking forward to more presentations
Director Woody is planning on presenting the play at a festival in northern Germany in summer and Thalia Theater Team is thinking about another presentation in fall. From TRR about 10 scientists have been in the audience – even some who didn´t understand the German text – Luby and Manita Chouksey have already ideas to translate this piece into an English version. This is work in progress.
It was wonderful to finally be able to see the results of these collaborations and also how the fundamental science of our project can be transferred in such new ways and thought patterns. Valentino and Luby told me they enjoyed the working with the artists very much and from what I can tell, the collaborations even may have opened new thought patterns on both sides. I would like to thank everyone and especially the ones I haven´t named in the text for being part of the projects and help realizing these events. We are looking forward to more repetitions of these events and of course also new projects.