Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm

A study project of the HfMDK BA Theatre Directing class in cooperation with students of the HTA

“Struggle for speech” takes a look at public speeches and political addresses from the margins. Students of the Hessian Theatre Academy work together on projects that each in their own way struggle with speech, search for language and modes of addressing others or find the political moment in the act of not speaking.

Why not speak, now? (WT)

He*she*it looks up

wants to say something

starts

says nothing

says nothing yet

This temporally defined moment before speaking – the silence, starting and pausing – a PRIOR TO. A verbal blank, charged with gestures and looks that already refer to what comes AFTER and its social and political moments. The performance “Why not speak, now?” seeks out these non-speeches and dissects the momentum of a non-verbal gesture in which it is not (yet) possible to speak.

All In 16+
Duration: approx. 40 min.
By and with Pia Epping, Paula Sasse and Ramón Wirtz

Stiefmuttersprache

There’s only one mother tongue and all the others are foreign to us. They are adopted by us and we are adopted by them – step-mother tongues. Several generations of Belarusians were deprived of their mother tongue: for them, Belarusian is in the same range as foreign languages. Translation of speech and thoughts is a daily routine for them, as is the loss of content and meaning.

All In 16+
Duration: approx. 40 min.

Concept development/performance: Hanna Launikovich and Max Böttcher
Outside Eye/ scenic design: Gil Hoz-Klemme

this is not the end (AT)

I stand by a coffin and wait. I don’t know who ordered me here. This is not a funeral service. This is not a consolatory commemoration. Before me lies what cannot be reconciled in the spirit of forgiveness. I ask myself, are there ways to remember beyond speech?

All in 16+
Duration: approx. 40 min.
By and with Nora Auerbach, Gil Hoz-Klemme, IRA and Jonathan Reuter