„Fast Forword“

In a world developing rapidly as ours, not everyone can keep the pace… what of those who prefer writing to typing, or talking to virtually chatting? with still some years remaining on this planet, they are already less part of it. Unlike traditional societies, western people forget their former generation - our old are often being relegated to peripheries, maltreated. In the interchanging traffic of new models, the old resemble the useless, the disintegrated, the dis-repaired. A human wreckage waiting to be redeemed.

And yet – magnificent people, sitting, in their rocking chairs, bound by ageing bodies. And waiting – for food? for the dissolution? Perhaps for someone to come and listen to their story? By now, all stories, gripping or monumental as may be, have been reduced to few sentences, trivial anecdotes of life, one needs imagination to see what they hold….

The Arena coproduction 2010 is going to create a symbolic retirement home in the form of a Durational Dance Installation lasting half a day, where two groups of performers are going to encounter each other. The staff on the one hand is controlling the structures, order and space of the area, whereas the inhabitants are minding their own business – until they are activated by the audience, willing to listen to their stories. With dance-like expressions they will bring their memories to life, fragments of half-digested tales and flickers of lifetimes gone by. All of these actions will take place as part of the performance that the audience can attend to either from an exterior point of view, or from the inside – as a visitor of the home. The installation will be accompanied with an original soundtrack by James Alaska und Tristan Shorr and consists of staff group of five students from Erlangen, as well as an inhabitant group of five professional performers from France/ Israel.