THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY?

“The world is burning and we are dancing on the abyss,” says the master of ceremony, Mike Bonanno. In this free stage adaptation of Horace McCoy’s novel, the public dance marathons of 1930s’ America are in focus: people literally danced until they dropped. The American activist and filmmaker Bonanno (The Yes Men) bridges in co-direction with the choreographer and dancer, Jeremy Nedd, the original novel and the present of our capitalist entertainment industry and its economic and algorithmic excesses. Day and night, week for week, only one thing counts for the participants: keep on moving. Here a competition for endurance and popularity takes place. Showtime means smiling, bewitching, entertaining, persevering. Whoever stops moving for more than 15 seconds is out. “Who is likeable? Who dies first?”, asks the master of ceremony, while the participants are trying to pull through. The master of ceremony makes a show out of everything and everybody. The superlative is essential: “People are the ultimate spectacle!” The goal is a full house and “happy customers”. The dancers like circus horses in the ring. Who passes physical boundaries might – perhaps – secure the audience’s favor. That’s how he wins the interest of sponsors as well as a crowd, which delights itself at the humiliation of the exhibited dance marathon participants. “And with every round, which is danced and with which Bonanno rushes past”, so the NZZ, “one feels more and more like being held hostage. One is captivated in the time, the space of the claim – and one’s own expectations.” The way out? Not only horses are shot.


Introduction in English: December 13 | December 16 | December 20 | At 7.30 PM
This season for the last time playing!
Performance held in English with German subtitles.