Projects

»forest/machine/slaughterhouse-prayer«

Performance for two actors on a text by Mehdi Moradpour

A carnal anthem, a sensuous song of praise, a testosterone-filled accusation, a needy gladiator combat, an ode, a litany, a prayer for her/him/it.
Actors Fabian Neupert and Richard Gonlag try to survive in a world full of love, violence and war.

© Dean Bell at the Club der Polnischen Versager

© Saverio Tonoli Solo-Performance at the Alte Münze Berlin

Iranian-born Author Mehdi Moradpour wrote this long poem, this very physical prayer trying to catch his views on this world and mankind in modern times in a new language: German.

Life has become a profit based, calculated machine that has to be fed and never gets enough. No matter if it is for the food industry or war – life has no real value anymore. People are shoved in all directions of the wind, gathered, contained and destroyed, like cattle.
Meat industry. Items in a global economy.

The I and the You in Mehdi's text – whoever they are – try to survive. They fight for love, for breath, for their place under the stars, for their position as man in this world, for their souls, for a purpose in life.
Are they friends, father and son, just one person in different stages of life, lovers, or archenemies? Or all of the above?

We perform the text three times, intermitted by three musical intersections, dissolve the text and into physical images. They hover in space, like words in 3D or entities made of language, used as weapons to achieve something in the other person or in themselves … Survival.

The actors built an inner world out of very personal and direct feelings and images, with which they improvise their actions. Like gladiators in an arena they adapt to environment, music and the audience. They’ve worked with Grotowski and Butoh to achieve this physical state.

Associations of the actors and the composer

COLOURS
black (forest), blue (machine), brown (slaughterhouse)

ASSOCIATIONS/MATERIALS
Forest, the hunt, youth – body/water/gender/game/air/spirit/dream/glass/sand
Machine, battle, warriors – war/dance/love/head/paper/rationality/metal
Slaughterhouse, mass, death – city/blood/sex/animalistic/fire/wood/leather/skin