Concept, Choreography, Performance
Jeremy Wade /
Music
Tian Rotteveel /
Costume design
Jean-Paul Lespagnard /
Light design
Andreas Harder /
Dramaturgy
Eike Wittrock
Production: Björn Pätz & Björn Frers – björn & björn
A production by Jeremy Wade in co-production with the HAU and Gaîté Lyrique Paris.
Supported by the Capital Culture Fund and the Governing Mayor – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.
Supported by the Tanzfabrik Berlin and the Uferstudios.
[The audience] bore witness to a powerful physical performance from an artist who knows how to stretch the bounds of his own physical experience and surrender it as a gift to all who watch.
– Anna Waller, Seattle Dances
The process was fascinating to behold, and strangely affecting. [...] I suspect I wasn’t the only one to emerge from the church a happier person.
– Brian Seibert, The New York Times
Wade is a captivating, growling demon, spastically continuing to “suck” the life out of each one of us.
– Christine Hou, Brooklyn Rail
[Wade] begins as an unconventional tour guide, expounding on the beauties of Saint Mark’s Church. Rapt, stumbling over his words at times, he calls our attention to the carpet covering the risers. Yes, it’s industrial grade, but look at how it descends the steps like a waterfall; note the flawlessness of its seams. He talks about the difference (or distance?) between our heads and the ceiling, marvels over keystones and arches and the rainbows cast by the stained glass windows. Kaufmann obliges him with elegant lighting. This is a charged space, he announces joyfully and a “garden of geometry.” He notes, too, that “this room has seen a lot of naked people.”
Then he embarks on an extraordinary, almost terrifying performance. Drawing in his cheeks, contorting his body, he sucks in. . .what? Our energy? Our life force? His body is an elastic jungle of twitches and spasms, as if every part of him were trying to find new channels of communication with every other part. After a while, he begins to blow it all out at us.
This isn’t a silent process, and I’m not talking about Tian Rotteveel’s sound score. Wade grunts and growls and howls—every sound seeming wrenched from his vitals. Some people can’t take their eyes off him; others, apparently discomfited, periodically look away. Gradually, he calms down and asks us to hum together on a tone he proposes. The acoustics of the church respond, and pretty soon the space indeed begins to vibrate. A soaring, secular hymn produced by a shaman, who (virtually speaking) has ingested some transformative substance that wracked his body and elated his soul.