June 2019

Independence for All (Worldpremiere)

Part of the two-year project FIGHT (FOR) INDEPENDENCE

State Theater Nuremberg

Ballhaus Ost Berlin (Guest Performance)

Premiere Nuremberg on 20 June 2019

Premiere Berlin on 27 June 2019

Further Shows in May and June 2020 in Oldenburg, Nuremberg and Berlin

“The discourse on the stage on the question of independence is as complex and relational as the topic. (…) The discourse on the stage on the question of independence is as complex and meaningful as the topic. (…) Being seated amidst a largely formatted, multi-media exchange, the audience is placed right in the middle of the fast-paced dialectic. (…) The perspective is rather too sharp than too inaccurate, because the roots go all the way back to the time of British colonialism. (…) The questions about the value and sense of autonomy and national identity in times of globalization that the evening presents in its powerful imagery, are the right and most important ones, even if there is no claim to answers.”

Nürnberger Zeitung, 22.06.2019

“This evening offers an extension of  documentary theater with cinematic means: camera teams travel to countries, document reality there and conduct interviews. Actors, in turn, give the interviewees vocal, sensual and contemporary presence and comment on the situation in front of these films projected onto the back wall. Thus, a documentary film is presented that arches three-dimensionally into the stage area like a fold-out picture book. Director, researcher and author Felix Meyer-Christian manages with the ensemble to let viewers be drawn into the observed conditions and emphasizes this three-dimensionality with a clear, emblematic performance style. (…) The Nuremberg experiment, which will be continued in Berlin and at the Oldenburg State Theater, has already achieved great success here.”

Landshuter Zeitung / Straubinger Tageblatt, 22.06.2019

Independence! Self-determination! The Costa Compagnie filmed in civil war-torn South Sudan, in the Brexit chaos in the UK and in Bavaria and asks in their cinematic performance: What does independence mean today, for what and by whom? Do we want to fight for or against it? And how does colonialism, the cause of many independence movements, continue today?

Not only does Fight (For) Independence span over two years, but also geographically over thousands of miles to diversify perspectives on the subject and de-colonize narratives. In return, the Costa Company from Berlin joins forces with the State Theater Nuremberg, the State Theater Oldenburg and the Edith Russ House for Media Art. From this triangle the group sets out into two European and two African countries in order to follow the tantalizing but also dubious call for “Independence”. The worldwide research began in South Sudan, the youngest state in the world to become independent from the rest of Sudan after a long armed struggle. It continued  in the United Kingdom on the formerly planned date of Brexit and went on to the region Franconia in the federal state of Bavaria, where one party is also seeking to break away from the national state of Germany. On the basis of interviews conducted on site, a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and multimedia work emerges on stage, also integrating 360°-footage and a VR-installation into the work.

In the 2019/20 season, the research will then continue from Mozambique’s struggle for independence through Catalonia’s attempts for separation to German identitarian groups around Oldenburg. Here, the project will present the second production “Independence for You”  (May 2020) at the local State Theater, as well as the choreographic work “Independence in Space” (January 2020) in the Edith-Russ-House for Media Art. All results will be shown in Nuremberg, Oldenburg and Berlin and will go on tour in 2020.

In German and English

Tickets and Info about Ballhaus Ost Berlin here

Tickets and Info about the State Theater Nuremberg here (German)

Artistic Director, Script, Research Felix Meyer-Christian  Camera Thomas Oswald, Philine von Düszeln Stage Design, Costume Lydia Sonderegger Composition, Soundart Marcus Thomas Programming, Video, Virtual Reality Erik Kundt Editing Keren Chernizon Dramaturgy Sascha Koelzow Performance, Script Hauke Heumann, Lisa Mies, Raphael Rubino, Maria Walser Assistant Michael Königstein Stringer, Collaboration South Sudan Samir Bol, Ismail Omar Production Management Franziska Merlo

With great thanks to all interview partners

Photo Credit: Thomas Oswald

A production by Costa Compagnie in cooperation with the State Theater Nuremberg and the State Theater Oldenburg, as well as the Edith-Russ-House for Media Art.

Funded in the Fonds Doppelpass by the Federal Foundation of Culture

Kindly supported by INVR.SPACE