Physical theatre

A graveyard in winter, melancholy and obsession, black metal concert and highly explosive tension – the piece »Kindertotenlieder« (»Songs on the death of children«) is all of this. Here, dancers, musicians and puppets roam around as the undead in our world, mercilessly allowing fiction and reality to blur.

In abstract and playful form, the issue of the death and forlornness of children is brought to the stage in a fascinatingly current manner. The French performance artist, Gisèle Vienne, was inspired by the spirits (not the music!) of the song cycle of the same name by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and by the myth of the »perchten« – pagan creatures, which provide protection against demons and ghosts in the winter. American author Dennis Cooper, who was born in California in 1953, has explored the cruelty, innocence and atonement contained in these Austro-Bavarian customs.

Gisèle Vienne was born in 1976 in Charleville-Mézières, near the Belgian border. She is half French and half Austrian and lives in Paris and Grenoble. After studying philosophy, she trained as a puppeteer in 1996-99 and is currently the shooting star of the French theatre scene. She delights and disturbs audiences in equal measure with her unusual pieces, such as »I apologize« (2004) and »Une belle enfant blonde« (»A beautiful blond girl«, 2005).

»The blow came from the front; musical and ice cold. An impact without provocation, but rather linked to reflection and seduction … Where are truth and lies? Where is fiction distinguished from reality?«