The stage in the Schwere Reiter is empty. White walls, white floor, no backdrops, the doors to the backstage are open, everything suggests maximum openness. Only an almost toxic green glowing potted plant and a distorting mirror set up the room somehow. But that doesn’t matter either, because none of the dancers are interested in these props in Micha Purucker’s “100.80.40 – rats in the living room” anyway.
The numbers refer to anniversaries around Pasolini, Jarman and Fassbinder. But the subtitle of the piece is actually much more appropriate: “études pathétiques”. Studies on sensitivity, then. In the semantic vibrational space from Beethoven to Romanticism to the stylized and deconstructed melodramatics of those three filmmakers who served as inspiration for the evening.
Micha Purucker works with small and tiny cells of dance expression. A total of seven dancers show the in different formations. Behave at first. Michal Heriban moves diagonally across the stage, fickle, one step forward, one sideways, half back. Individual parts of the body decouple from the rest – typical for Purucker – always make the rest of the body appear somewhat inhibited. Until Heriban disappears through the backstage door, posing like a rock star. Polina Sonis remains standing in the doorway, leaning there casually, looking after him to the music, which sounds over a background noise as if it were constantly changing between different radio frequencies.
No mood is allowed to stay long, everything mixes
The music, or rather the score, designed by Robert Merdzo, is consistently and relentlessly eclectic. No peace, no mood is allowed to stay long, everything mixes into a lost anti-climax dramaturgy. The individual moods are strong, but completely unconnected to each other and therefore without an emotional basis. It stays as cool as the harsh cuts between scenes, the human condition popping up like flashbulbs.
A couple dances at a gallop across the stage, exhilarated as in the 19th century. Then two people aggressively and unrestrainedly throw themselves on top of each other. Music and lighting go with these moods. Warm light, the sexy groove of a surf guitar – cut – an electronic rhythm, empty, dystopian, cold light. At the end, countertenor and Kammersänger Christopher Robson comes on stage in a large robe like Elizabeth I, but performs unctuous playback to the song “Stormy Weather”.
Micha Purucker creates something recognizable, emotional and visual. But without the kitsch of a replica. Dealing with it is far too casual for that. Therein lies the strength, but also the weakness of the piece. Because this casualness is also transferred to the audience.
100.80.40 – rats in the living room, still on Sunday, January 15th, 8.30 p.m., Heavy Riders