cactus bar
dance performance (2007/08)
dance performance (length ca. 85min), 4 dancers, 1 actor, 1 dj, 1 musician
What characterises the sensuous human after loosing all sexual taboos? What remains of desire if the secret vanished and boredom took over? In collaboration with four dancers, an actor, a DJane, and a musician the Cologne based artist Stephanie Thiersch explores the dark sides of eroticised bodies, the need for love in-between the extremes. „Stephanie Thiersch is a contemporary surrealist. She is one the most risk taking and experimental body artists of the present.“ (3Sat, Birgit Adler- Conrad)
Concept, direction: Stephanie Thiersch
choreography, dance: Douglas Bateman, Orlando Rodriguez, Agustina Sario, Romy Schwarzer
acting: Jens Münchow
music: Joseph Suchy
DJ: Miss Bailey
costume: Karen Piewig
stage: Bettina Buck
dramaturgy: Rosi Ulrich
light-design: Niko Moddenborg, Stephanie Thiersch
assistance: Teresa Ranieri, Karen Piewig
technical direction: Niko Moddenborg
production management: Béla Bisom
production assistance: Anna Kempner
photography: Jenny Noelle, Martin Rottenkolber
design: Jörg Waschat
press: Claudia Saar (FHZ)
Produced by MOUVOIR, in cooperation with Freihandelszone – ensemblenetzwerk köln, coproduced by tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf and O Espaço do Tempo, Montemor-o-Novo, Lisbon. Thanks to the Academy of Music Cologne / Department for Dance
Funded by Cultural Department of the City of Cologne, Arts Foundation NRW, Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia, RheinEnergie-Foundation for Culture, Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V., and SK-Stiftung Kultur
Thierschs brilliant choreography about the search for meaning
(Westdeutsche Zeitung)
The answer to the leading question what is left over after the loss of sexual taboos, after the secret transformed into boredom, is interpreted by the MOUVOIR ensemble in a most entertaining and self-ironic way.
(Bonner General-Anzeiger)
Within the ironic stage design of visual artist Bettina Buck – spiny leather furniture and latex-resembling shiny floor – Stephanie Thiersch is performing with virtuosity all kinds of dance variations dealing with today’s erotic. Humorous comfort for a sex-drive in panic!
(Kölner Stadtanzeiger)
A brilliant choreography between David Lynch aesthetics and ballroom-classics. The music is surprising at any moment and pictures are found for sex and love that go without any sentimentality and flat film quotations. A production that is at the top of its subject.
(Kölnische Rundschau)
Usually the representation of the self, the search for identity and meaning in a world determined by media define the work of Stephanie Thiersch, latest seen with her very successful performance “beautiful me”. This time she is analysing the soul and its dark sides extremely profound.
(ballettanz international)
