The Future
Composition | Contemporary Dance Theatre
A production of Dorky Park and Volksbühne Berlin, 2023
Concept, text and direction: Constanza Macras Dramaturgy: Carmen Mehnert
By and with: Simon Bellouard, Alexandra Bódi, Emil Bordás, Fernanda Farah, Rob Fordeyn, Cordelia Lange, Sonya Levin, Thulani Lord Mgidi, Daisy Phillips, Miki Shoji
Composition: Robert Lippok
Live Music: Almut Lustig, Kristina Lösche-Löwensen, Katrin Schüler-Springorum
Stage Design: Alissa Kolbusch
Costume Design: Eleonore Carrière
Human beings have, throughout the ages, felt the urge to predict the future. In ancient times, oracles were consulted, people read in the bowels of sacrificial animals for prophecies, or looked into the constellation of stars up in the sky. For many decades in the past, the eccentric fortune teller Walter Mercado made prophecies about the future in popular tv appearances, nowadays innumerous astrology websites on the internet do the job.
In The Future, we will explore the future of the past and various theories of time, look at oracles and puzzles, and, following Karen Barad, sound out the possibility that the past might not has arrived yet. The future has, perhaps, gradually been abolishing itself, and all we’re left with is the endless and timeless reproduction of anachronisms.
It’s like you’re looking at scene set in a club in science-fiction movies: no matter when the film is produced, it’s always represented as a club in the 1980s with the doomsday clock showing five to twelve.
A storm is coming, says the man at the gas station. I know, I say, play Sarah Connor again.
Jan Küveler, chief correspondent Feuilleton, Die Welt
“In practice, it looks like this: a wild wig and costume battle from the Stone Age to the Oracle of Delphi to the present day. Medieval torture cages become props of hedonism in New York clubs of the 1980s without having to be restyled. At the beginning, the performers sprint forwards from the plastic tarpaulin mounds and let themselves fall, struck down by bass beats (the consistently fantastic music comes from Robert Lippok)”
Photo: Thomas Aurin