Performance
While sleeping, the human body is vulnerable. A feeling of security and peace helps us every night to withdraw from the world. But what if social protection as we know it, suddenly falls apart? ›The Guardians of Sleep‹ creates a quivering microcosm within the theatre’s coordinates of time and space. Six performers disclose various levels of intimacy to the groups of spectators. By sharing individually their personal archive of visual memories, they unfold their own life stories. This creates, gradually, a feeling of proximity and deep empathy between them and the audience. Once the narration comes to an end, the performers, one by one, let themselves fall asleep on stage. As they are falling asleep, they try to keep eye contact with their listeners, thus inviting them to take over the role of guardians of their sleep.
Ambivalent relations between light and dark, activity and passivity, looking and being looked at resonate with and against one another. A look that often stays on the surface of things, in The Guardians of Sleep gets challenged by an act of exposed abandonment. How much responsibility can you take for someone you don’t know? When does the activity of looking at someone turn into watching over that person?
The Guardians of Sleep has been generated by and still nurtures performative practices and pedagogical processes within theatres, museums, and educational spaces. In Bremen, the performance welcomes three young new guardians.
CONCEPT & DIRECTION David Weber-Krebs
PERFORMANCE Esther Adam, Julien Bruneau, Alondra Castellanos Arreola, Katharina Greeven, Irena Radmanovic, Sofie Ruffing
COSTUM Anne-Catherine Kunz and performers
ARTISTIC ADVICE Marie Urban
ARTISTIC ASSISTENCE / PRODUCTION Simone Basani
ILLUSTRATION Eva le Roi
PRODUCTION Infinite Endings
Co-production: Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum BUDA, zeitraumexit. With the kind support of the Flemish authorities and the Flemish Community Commission. Guest performance in the framework of the NFT. This project is made possible by the program ‚Verbindungen fördern‘ of the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.