HOUSE OF ANTIBODIES Collaboration
What if a virus were not just a serious attack to an organism? If it did not lead society into a collapse, but out of it? What if this friendly visitor brought reanimation as a present and his infection was a long-awaited touch? If the virus tasted sweet? The inhabitants of HOUSE OF ANTIBODIES reinterpret the pandemic and mutate, thanks to the virus, into resistant antibodies. They are relieved when it breaks down disease-causing standards and habits. This virus brings neither illness nor death to the organism, but – quite the contrary – healing. This pandemic imposes a quarantine over society, overcomes previous periods of standstill and isolation, and marks the beginning of a brave new world.
A double feature of two films tells of the virus breaking into all rooms and organs of the HOUSE OF ANTIBODIES.
In COCOONING /kəˈkuːnɪŋ/ (dance film) the virus brings its sweet gift to the cellar, where a kidney is doing its lonely hard work until then. In the bathroom a lung is barely able to breathe and in the living-room a uterus is always ready to receive. The heart beats everywhere and swells with the rhythm of a resuscitation. From room to room and from organ to organ, the virus pushes open doors and also the circulation.
In PANDEMIE – A REVENANT (theatre film) the virus leads a female doctor and patients through the extensive labyrinth of the stage rooms of the HOUSE OF ANTIBODIES. In common quarantine they indulge in all the phases of the examination, diagnosis, education, treatment and corresponding interactions. From mutual infection, immunisation, endangerment and healing the model acrues a hardheaded, resistant and proud community.
The HOUSE OF ANTIBODIES initially was planned as a live performance on five simultaneous stages for a a circulating audience. Due to the intrusion of a virus and the outbreak of a pandemic, this concept could not be implemented. Rather, it was imperative for everyone to stay at home and so the participants communicated online. Under influence of the applicable hygiene standards, dancers*, actors* and musicians* rehearsed in their apartments in Stuttgart, Antwerp, Richmond, Marseille, Berlin, Weinstadt, Munich and Hamburg as well as in the Theater Rampe. With their mobile phones, partly with the support of their respective domestic communities, they shot many scenes themselves. This is how the virtual HOUSE OF ANTIBODIES came into being.
Premiere: June 6th 2020 // 20:00 // haus-der-antikoerper.de
More shows of Cocooning /kəˈkuːnɪŋ/:
March 12th 2021 // 20:00 // Der Soundtrack des Haus der Antikörper // Live at Radio Rampe
February 19 – 21 2021 // HochX, München
March 15 – 20 2021 // EinTanzHaus, Mannheim
March 25 – 28 2021 // Lichthof Theater, Hamburg
April 25 – 30 2022 // 6 tage frei, Stuttgart
Contributors
Team // Cocooning /kə’ku:nɪŋ/
A Film BY backsteinhaus produktion
Team: Nicki Liszta, Heiko Giering, Isabelle von Gatterburg, Tobias Tönjes, Christopher Bühler, Annatina Huwiler, Chloé Beillevaire, Steven Chotard, David Ledger, Andreia Rodrigues, Ferdinand Roscher, Monika Roscher
With many thanks to the original concept team: Martina Grohmann (Dramaturgy Theater Rampe), Anja Sackarendt (Dramaturgy Theater Lübeck), Laura Dreyer (Assistent) and the technical team of Theater Rampe.
With further sincere thanks for spontaneous support to Clara Paulau y Herrero for building the cocoons, Florence Carron, Jean-Marie Beillevaire, Barbara Hackenjos, Myron MCAdory, Famillie Ledger, Anne Reijniers, Griet Pauwels, Jochem Baelus and Miroslav Kochanek for film and equipment support in the respective countries during the lockdown.
Webseite: studio panorama
Team // PANDEMIE – A REVENANT
A theatre film by Marie Bues, Niko Eleftheriadis, Marie Ulbricht, Annatina Huwiler and Luise Heiderhoff
Text: Natascha Gangl
Director: Marie Bues
Camera and post production: Niko Eleftheriadis
Music: Siri Thiermann
Filmic cooperation: Christopher Bühler
Director’s assistent: Luise Heiderhoff
Production design: Annatina Huwiler
Dramaturgy: Martina Grohmann
With Niko Eleftheriadis and Marie Ulbricht
With many thanks to Matthias Kaschig, Matthias Zaijgier, and the Kaschig and Ulbricht families.
Press
«In initially strictly separate scenes, the dancers Chloé Beillevaire, Andreia Rodrigues, David Ledger and Steven Chotard act out a common discomfort. The settings are their own bathrooms, bedrooms and stairwells. Behind the cameras are partners* or roommates otherwise attached to them.
The film is a perhaps necessary personal supplement to the super-cooled social image from “Pandemic – A Revenant”. While a vague frame introduces the dancers as organs of a large body, this location soon blurs behind the sizzling discharge of pent-up energy. It is indeed true for all four that they build up extreme tension in the smallest of spaces and bring it to eruption, for example when Chloé Beillevaire trembles in her not particularly large bathtub as if in a cell tiled up to the ceiling, writhes and struggles as if screwed to the tap of the sink.» (Jan-Paul Koopmann, nachtkritik.de, 06.06.2020)
Partner
Realised in collaboration with Theater Lübeck and Theater Rampe. Funded in the Fonds Doppelpass of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (Federal Cultural Foundation), by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg and the Foundation of the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg.
