Freihandelszone

The world as image and conception: In the age of the media there is no immediate self. Role models determine our identity and our thinking. However, the great multiplicity of potential roles also creates a new, special kind of liberty. Together with her choreographic partner and dancer Alexandra Naudet, the Cologne choreographer and media artist Stephanie Thiersch explores the complicated interaction of idea and flesh; of image-memory and the female body. A test arrangement for which she finds breathtaking, very concrete visual transformations; enigmatic, slightly morbid and provocative like a fashion shoot or a film by David Lynch.

No matter whether Alexandra Naudet as Botticelli´s Venus; as the naked woman in Manet´s “Breakfast in the Open Air”; or as a porn queen – her fantastic presence and charisma gives the subversive game with identity just as much depth as down-to earth quality. As an ironic effect, her various personas are interrupted by a persistently pottering technical crew. Especially the stage manageress emerges as a threatening competition for the main actress – right up to the showdown, with sparks flying.