An event for 10 performers, live dance music and red flesh

In her artistic lifetime Valeska Gert (1892-1978) the eccentric dancer, cabaret artiste and actress, was an iceberg brought to explosion by a strange inner heat, whether in München, Berlin, Moscow, London or New York. She brought inspiration and atmosphere to Tanzfabrik Berlin’s dance-drama »Der Riß« (»The split«); Tanzfabrik is one of the most important free dance-drama groups in Germany.

It is hardly Gert’s life story which leaves its mark on the »curious collection of people, of soul, ecstasy and green asparagus«; above all it is her crisp, cold humour, the passion and extravagant eccentricity of her dramatic expression, her cosmopolitan existence and her artistic attitude to life. Being included, being excluded by »Sketches in Gert’s shadow«, by hard-hitting songs, revue, danced love and joking commentary, by live sound and music – that’s Tanzfabrik in »The split«.

»A stimulating, partly exciting, in no wise boring … perhaps not entirely comprehensible performance. In any case the ensemble’s achievement is superb» (Neue Zeit, Berlin, 19.03.1991).