a platonian cave canem kafkaesque coffin break kammerspiel

performance installation piece for three performers, myoelectrical stimulation, a chicken called Tesla, video & sound. duration of one cycle ca. 15 minutes

imperial chickensouperpowers for the white room-o-botter

what happens: groups of 10 people are lead into an anteroom where they are ordered to sit and wait. a strange person behind a counter is giving out questionaries and calling people to the desk in random order. this character is mutating over the duration of the whole piece from casual guy to kafkaesque clerk to lunatic to chicken. every 5 minutes one person is admitted to an adjoining room where an attendant is showing them about. a puppet emperor and his rural adventures are presented on screens while a glimpse into an overhead orifice provides an inverse cage perspective on the confetti chicken. the gloomy atmosphere of the first two rooms is followed by an eery transition to the center stage. There, the “emperor” is performing his private little hatching dance, controlled and hardsynced to the installation soundtrack by a mystical myoelectrical device dangling around his neck. after this shocking galvanic experience, the lounge room is a chill out, big brother-like situation with a cctv tablecloth, walls with eyes and gin & tonic served by lovely ladies. the audience members meet again and, while discussing their own experiences, are able to watch others still on the tour and enjoy the joint joyful noises unto the creator from all the performance rooms.

First installment shown at Amsterdam Hogeschool, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Final version first shown at ARGEkultur, Salzburg, Austria

Further installments with slight variations:

Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Dresden/Germany

Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich/Switzerland

Performers: Georg Hobmeier, Gregor Ladenhauf

Concept: DEPART and Senselabor

Video, Sound, Programming, Production Design: DEPART