 California, Los Angeles, declared that all schools, no matter what will be closed for the entire fall and Harvard announced that fall and spring teachings and other universities too will be completely online. So we don't really know what will happen here. The numbers are going up in 38 states. New York is doing very well. We had one day even without a corona test. So it is quite a complicated time for everybody in theater, of course, still there's no end of that closing inside for sure till the end of the year. Nothing will happen. And theater artists, of course, are in the center of what it means to be necessary or not necessary, essential or not essential. And now they are forced to stay at home and think things through and wonder what their contribution is to society, to the arts. I always do think that great theater, great performances, and also sports is a reward of a functioning society, a great society, and the better it is, more better theaters you will see. So at the moment, we don't see it. And especially here, we know it's not working. And it's been a disastrous leadership. Today we have with us a very significant artist, young director from Europe, young female director, Susanne Kennedy, who is based in Berlin. She studied in Amsterdam. And she has done extraordinary work for the theater. And we are really, really thrilled to have you with us. Susanne, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And I'm just going to read a few lines from her bio. She, in her work, which I saw the opening of UltraWorld in January, I was lucky to be that she responds to the balance of power between bodies, technical objects, and machines with aesthetics that is beyond the human, not the human body. Distorted by masks, playback dialogue, doppelgangers, and multimedia, the actor confronts the audience with opposed humanistic subjectivity in that UltraWorld, she investigated consciousness as a virtual construction, like our thinking, our consciousness, to understand that what we do is a virtual construction, how we understand the world. And she simulates the transformation of the human within it. And so Susanne, first of all, where are you at the moment and what time is it? It's 6 o'clock in the evening. And I am in south of Germany. This is actually my boyfriend's old room, I mean, because we're at his parents' home. And this is the room he used to be in. And my parents, they're like, I don't know, a few kilometers from here. They're not so far away. We used to go to nearly the same schools. It was schools next to each other. And I fancied him when I was 15 and he was 18. I always saw him on the bus. And then we didn't see each other for 20 years. And now we're together for six years and working together. So all of my past work I've done with him, he's a visual artist. So every time we come here to south of Germany, we can visit both our parents, which is quite funny. So yes. That's quite lucky, quite beautiful. So is it Bavaria also in Germany? It's Baden-Württemberg. Baden-Württemberg. So it's near the Black Forest, actually. There's a lot of forests here. So that's quite amazing. So what is going on? Are Berlin artists leaving Berlin? I don't know if they are leaving Berlin. It's sometimes good to leave Berlin, but I think it's a good city to come back to always. I feel very at home in Berlin. And I have to say Berlin has been quite generous to its artist. I don't know if you heard about it, but it's during this difficult time where people couldn't work and had no income, that the city gave artists and you could just apply for it. And the next day you got money on your account, like 5,000 euros. And I was lucky. I didn't have to do it because I still got paid at that time. But a lot of my friends got the money and it really helped them. And that was just such a great gesture. I thought it was amazing that this suddenly can happen and you could just apply for it and get it. And you don't have to pay back and you don't have to account for it. Yeah, sometimes these things are possible. So yeah, it was a moment where I thought, yes, it's beautiful to live in a city that's able to do that now. It's just stunning, especially compared to the situation in New York where I think even artists from the Metropolitan Opera haven't been paid since March and nothing has been given. There are absolutely no jobs, whether they're musicians, technicians, actors, directors. Everything is closed and so much is based anyway, as you know, on nonprofit, on donations. And it's a most, most difficult time. So it sounds really like an earthly paradise. But it also does show that this city is the city of the arts. And I think I'm sure no one will forget what did it even Great Britain, I think, just donated or gave $2 billion towards the arts institutions and to the arts. But here, of course, it's a complicated, complex situation. So where were you when it all happened? What were you doing and when the news came that things shut down? We were rehearsing in Munich. Our last work was Oracle. So we were into rehearsals, I think, about two weeks. And in the beginning, everybody was, yeah, this will pass. This will blow over really quickly. And then suddenly they said no shows anymore. And then it was, OK, you have to leave and go back as soon as possible. And then, yeah, we had to leave. Everybody had to leave. And we had a big crew of people also from Brazil because we had a lot of technical stuff we were working on. So everybody had to go back and we went back to Berlin and stayed there for the next two months, not knowing if we would be able to continue the work or not. And in between, I completely abandoned it because I thought it's not going to be possible to finish it. But amazingly enough, at the end of May, suddenly in Bavaria, they said, OK, it's possible to rehearse again with certain measures. And we were able to come back and complete the work and show it to audience. So that has actually been possible in Munich. In Berlin, it's not possible yet. So for us, it was we were so lucky. And Oracle is an installation. And it was we we meant to do it for four people. And so you can pass through it as a group. But now it was even possible because of the COVID situation to do it for one person, which is such a great luxury. So you can walk through the installation on your own. And you go through different rooms and situations and you get to meet the Oracle, which is a robot. And we could show it. I mean, it was amazing. So for me, this is a very strange time where some people are still in the situation of lockdown and thinking how to deal with it. And we already had a premiere. We already had a possibility to show the work. Yes, quite crazy action. How did it feel rehearsing? I guess did you all have masks or what were the restrictions? And yes, we all had masks and keep and we were supposed to keep this distance. And someone by your how do you say that? Virulog, a virologist, virologist exactly came. And we walked through the whole installation and she told us what was possible and whatnot. And then we adapted things. And but it was very easy. Somehow my my work is very corona proof somehow because they're all keeping their distance anyway. And they're not talking. It's playback, which means you can even get closer. Then if you because often in German theater, there's a lot of shouting and running. And that's loud. Yes. Yes, a naked shouting running. That's a cliche, but it's often true. And so with me, it's very rigid and they don't talk themselves. So I also with ultra world, which you saw, we could. We made it corona proof and we didn't have to change a lot. So they're wearing kind of shields, see through shields, which I like a lot because I think they're quite beautiful. So and then I didn't I could just because we're going to show the work in Austria. So a lot is still happening in my case, which is not the case for other people. I know that. So it's I'm talking from a different position here. And how did it feel for you as an artist to say to work in? To you mean, yeah, to was that you adapted fast or did something happen that was even better or worse? Or well, I think I'm always someone who adapts very fast. I think when you work in theater, you always because things never work out the way you intended them to work out, always something happens. And it doesn't it doesn't go like you planned it to go. So I think as a director or an artist in the theater, you have to have that mindset anyway. So I tried to, especially with the with the shields, we said, OK, let's use the shields, but really make them into something beautiful. We put little lights into the shields so they are like lit up faces in the dark. And I really I really thought, OK, how can I how can I use? I had I had the feeling that also the audience that came was very open, very vulnerable, because, of course, it was just after lockdown and people were allowed to to go somewhere again and kind of meet meet actors. It was so it was quite powerful. So I always try to see what what can I use of this situation? And I I was working with Oracle. We I was very interested in the idea of incubation. So this ancient Greek practice where you would go to a sacred place and then go lie down in a dark place, sometimes for days and nights. And caves, caves, exactly. And you were either sick or crisis in crisis. Or you had a question and often there was also some kind of Oracle. And then in dreams, you would get answers or healing. So it was very much a healing place of healing. So, of course, coming out of this. Lockdown situation and all these questions that. That we asked ourselves during that time were very valid in the Oracle installation. Also, people asked the Oracle a lot of things concerning what's going to happen in the future, what's my place in it? What what am I supposed to do? How can I deal with it? And that idea of incubation. So not going out, not engaging, not getting everything from outside. But trying to be confronted with yourself, which is very difficult. And we have not learned to do and we run away from often and to see if theater can be a place, a kind of sacred place in a way where we can go if that's possible. I mean, we'll see how it will continue in the future. It's still this idea that it's a place where we can ask profound questions about ourselves and the world and the reality we live in. So coming out from that kind of incubation period and being able to. To practice it in a sense, because we do not have these ritual centers or rituals at all anymore. So I have the feeling maybe we need to, yeah, we need to try and build them again. And for me, theater has this power, is this place of being in the here and now with other with other people. So that's something I'm trying to work on. How interesting how you connect a most ancient tradition. I know for some of the oracles, I mean, you had to go through walkways cut into stones. There are hundreds of very small and to get to these places where you then spend time alone, some say fumes would come out of the earth. But often there was a prophet, a seer, or a oracle, a woman, or it was a person. So you had a robot. So tell us about your idea of the post-human and that new technology, which you. Yeah, I think technology makes it possible for us to ask questions about who we are. So it's not so much that I'm so much into technology. And I think the future is going to be so different and more exciting than it is now. But it is because we're so confronted with technology. I think it gives us the possibility to ask ourselves, but who are we? Who is this human being being thrown onto earth? What's my purpose here? So I think I use technology to to look at the human being again and to ask what what what makes a human being a human being and also how is it that we put ourselves in a kind of hierarchy and everything beneath us is that. And also, of course, I mean, it's being talked about a lot. This in this past time, maybe it's not a very good idea to do that. So I'm using technology as a metaphysical means, I would say. And also this idea about virtual reality. I'm not so much interested in, you know, gaming or or or wearing these VR masks to go into a different reality. I have the feeling what the reality we live in is a kind of virtual reality that we create without thinking in a sense. So I'm trying to go into that and to to to ask maybe different questions and because it's something that I have the feeling we do not go often in our own lives, not go far enough with these questions. So I'm trying to create a space where we can ask these questions. And of course, I don't want to ask them only intellectually or not at all intellectually, maybe, but very much also with the body. And so then what does it mean to talk? What does it mean to to not have a face anymore? To who who are you if you don't talk yourself or you wear a mask? So yes, that's these these are these are this is a kind of very personal research for me. This time of incubation, let's say that and corona, I guess one could include that for you. Also, what did did something change for you? Did did you get inside? So how did you experience as a person? How did you experience this time? In the beginning, I was very excited because I thought something's happening in a big way. And I was I was I don't know, I was open for it, I guess. And then, of course, because then the everyday life inside was going on and it became more and more difficult. Also, because of course, we were with a little child and then I thought and so it's really very much about family life and I didn't have much time to reflect on what I felt or what was going on. So there were there were quite there were periods were that were difficult also because you don't know for how long this is going to take. I mean, it could be this is the new reality and it is, in a way. But then but then suddenly it was over. So lockdown was over and we could jump back into rehearsals. And at the somehow I don't think I can already really talk about it. I have the feeling it's too early to make conclusions somehow because it has just happened and it's such a big thing. So I think it will take years and years to really process it and and and find answers and also to work with it. You know, as artists, you let things pass through you and then see what where it takes you in the work. So it's far too early to to be able to to also really find language for it, I guess. You have a feeling it's over from. Germany went through it. Yeah, it's I mean, in. Everyone, of course, is talking about the second wave. And I at some point I stopped looking at the numbers, I have to say. So I also didn't didn't read the news anymore. So I because I I I had the feeling for me it didn't help me. So it was also in this idea of incubation. OK, then I'm trying to go deeper somewhere else and not look outside so much. And and for me, it stayed abstract because I I knew one person who had it, but very, very mild symptoms. And so I could not, in a sense, experience it myself. I could experience the met the measures that we were being taken. But the virus to me was and still is abstract, and that's something really difficult, because how do you deal with something that is you're being told is there, but you don't. You have no experience with it, except the what's the consequences of it in because trying to protect yourself from it. So that's something I'm still thinking about. What does that mean and how how can you react to it in a very personal way that you do not just listen what someone else tells you and then you you do it, but that you find your own way in it. And that's something that's also maybe also too early because we can only listen to what other people tell us and the numbers and the situation. So I don't know. Maybe it's different in in the US and New York that you really see what it does, I guess. I so yeah, it depends, which probably also which country you live in. Yeah, yeah, I know he I think it's still still in full full range New York is better. It was one day without a corona desk around the country. And I think in 38 or 40 states, it's going up in traumatic numbers. I think Los Angeles, as I said, you know, just decided to close all schools for the fall. So you had you say we're looking for answers. We will talk into each other. But tell us about the idea of the robot oracle. How was it artificial intelligence project? And what answers did the robot help to find people to get answers? What did it do? But how did it work? What was the idea behind it? So the idea was that you would get prepared before you met the oracle because you can't just walk in and go straight to the oracle and ask your question, you really need to, in a sense, cleanse and think about the question you want to ask and get into a different state of mind. So first you met the kind of priests, actors that would talk to you. Then you had to lie on beds. We call them incubation beds. You had to go to an incubation tank and then you had to stay in a room and be silent with with one actor. So it's also it's a kind of going through different stages before you were able to meet the oracle. And then you would go into room and there was a robot arm and an eye and you would talk to it. And the thing with artificial intelligence is I was before I started working with it. I my expectations, what artificial intelligence is were much higher than they are now, I have to say. Because there's a lot of work behind the scene that you have to do. So it's always, I mean, it's a lot of testing that you have to see. Okay, what do people ask and how can we answer that? So it's a lot of human work actually. So the idea of artificial intelligence and really I got a different picture of that. So but what you can do is you can ask the robot three questions and it goes into a kind of database where it comes up with answers. And of course, I also prepared the database, but it's also random. It just picks answers from the internet. So it's a combination of that. And for the database, I was accessing texts from different spiritual masters and trying to come up with answers that are so all encompassing but so specific at the same time that you feel that you're being meant. Which was a very interesting work because you have to think of what kind of questions will people ask? And how can you respond to that even if you don't know what they're going to ask? So we built a kind of dialogue tree to do that. And people, it was amazing because people were so open and so they asked such existential questions in that room that I was not prepared for. So in a sense, it's as if we built something and we could hardly deal with it, what it became. It is as if people are much more open toward a robot than they would be in front of a different human being. And that is really something I'm still thinking about because I also want to continue the work and develop it further. What does it mean and what's my responsibility in it? Because I had the feeling that I'm no longer a theater director. What do I do as a theater director with people being so vulnerable and open and trusting us or this situation? It has been a really amazing experience. And it takes me somewhere else where I feel I have to still have to learn something about something that I don't know exactly what it is yet. Oh, I think it's a beautiful idea to go back to that perhaps what so many people say, theater started in a shamanistic tradition to put on the fur of the animal you were hunting and you said something, danced something and practiced some form of magic and a connection to a spiritual life. And it also reminds of Joseph Weissenbaum's early experiments in the 70s when he had like pretended the computer would know and could answer you, but he just had random answers. And John Cage, of course, worked this chance and said that this is giving a significant artistic and uttering of also Cunningham had the computer do his choreography. But my question also is the post-human which you deal with and the world, the virtual world and meditation, do you feel theater in a way has kind of lost its way from this origin from that kind of past speaking from from the idea of meditation? Are you do you meditate? What is that a practice for you? Do you want to integrate that in your work? I'm not an experienced meditator. So I do it like I think a lot of people on and off. And when I don't feel so good, I think, okay, maybe I should start meditating again. But I've never really, really done it as a practice. But it's something I have a longing somehow. And it's it's something that I feel in the theater that I also long for. So it's it's I'm trying to create something in the theater that I I have a feeling would also help me get into a different space where I can experience reality in a different way. So it's not so much about reflecting or researching, but really about experiencing. I once had a work that was called Women in Trouble that was at the Volksbühne in Berlin. And I was talking to someone who after the performance and he told me and he didn't even like it that much. So it was not to his taste, I think. But he said, I felt so strange leaving the theater and going outside. It was as if reality itself was somehow suddenly very strange. And I I walked to my car and suddenly the whole idea of a car was very strange. And other people looked different. And I got into a car and I drove to a red light and it all felt so weird. And so and I thought I was so beautiful because so it didn't matter if he liked it or he didn't like it. But it is as if it was suddenly your own perception of reality changed and that the theater him spending two hours in the theater and then going outside again and being able to see it with different eyes, even if it was just for, I don't know, five minutes or something like that. That that felt so strong to me that I thought this is this is for me what it's what it's about. And then creating a kind of ritual because it is it is this practice where the the actors take you somewhere take you to to a kind of place where you can maybe you can go there by meditating. I don't know because I'm not as I said I'm not regular meditator. So I've never been there with by myself. But I have the feeling in theater if it's if if you use the right means and you believe in theater and it has that power that you that you can go there together as a group. That is a space for an experience like looking at a painting Bob Wilson always sometimes said I think once famously that all this I think lots of European theater is fascist because they tell you what to sing the playwright the director it's not open I like to look at things and and experience a a landscape or trees or the idea of animals and and and things people said in your work it almost looks like a second life you know that's kind of online experience an early one that existed or the virtual reality sets your actors don't speak most of it is recordings right if I also understand right so tell us a bit about that idea because it's such a unique and original and authentic discovery you made. Yes I think it comes from the from the fact that I always went to the theater and I had the feeling it's not I cannot relate to it the way human beings are shown on stage. I always I always had longing to be much more drawn in by the actors than the actor showing me what they're feeling and what they're what they're experiencing and shouting it or putting it out there so it was very much thinking how can I come how can I make it more intimate personal through the voice and that's when I discovered that through doing playback and we recorded the voices in the studio where you can go very quiet and have a very different kind of tone which is in a way kind of very film-like and I like that a lot and but it was also that I had the feeling what what I was talking about earlier this idea of how the human being is represented on stage is through conventions that we have accepted as a kind of realism that we say yes yes this is how people are but if I look at people on the street or just in a cafe uh I find people um if I would see two people talking to each other in front of a supermarket let's say and I would put them just exactly like they are and how they're talking in the kind of language they're using and put them like that on stage it would be a very absurd scene so I've always had the feeling that we do not have the right means to show what reality is really like on on stage and reality in in in everyday life and reality can be you know everything I mean it can sometimes be very very strange and so I was searching for means to do that to convey this kind of feeling that I sometimes have when I'm just watching people on the street and find an atmosphere on stage to be able to to to convey this feeling but also how people how how the actors would move and and or not move on stage so because so the the the conventional means of portraying people on stage did not um yeah did not work for me so I had to invent something else and I did it step by step so in the beginning I was still working with actors who talked on stage and used their own voices and then it got more and more radical because I thought okay if I if I if I get away with this then I'm going to go even further and yes it's also trying to push theater to to its own boundaries even thinking are there boundaries when does it stop being theater but very much to go back to the root of theater somehow so what you said about the shaman shamanistic practices is very important to me so I'm trying to go back to something that's very essential of theater because of course you have this moment as an artist where I think why why bother why theater and that's when I thought no it has to be theater because it is there's such a immense immense power in the the fact that we're together in this room we're quiet as an audience we we're in the dark often and we we spend this time together to go somewhere I think that's so strong and there's hardly hardly any other places that do that so in a in a in a sense it is something sacred and the idea that the actors are like robots and are this idea of the post-human it's it's it's it's not so much like I said before that I I I use technology to to find out really what's essential about human beings I guess so it's very much about the human being and not so much about robots I guess I mean that's a stunning I did that on one hand you have this ancient you know tradition of spiritual paths or meditating what finding answers for the essential questions of life on the other hand your your stage and perhaps next to I think I remember sequences from Bob Wilson's Cologne Civil Wars for the astronauts were on the letters or maybe Richard Forman work I have never seen anything as in its plasticity something from the future or a modeled virtual world as in your world as in your ultra world I was something that yeah was a message from the future in a way and and that you think you know this is a way for us as audiences to experience this and then if you have a plastic shield on as an actor or not it doesn't really matter if you hear the voice or not it doesn't matter like in film it is it is of course recorded anyway so your research and you did a check off also I think the three sisters yes which you know I don't know we had fitted in your career which of course people say it's the one of the most realistic representation even so if you look at it so highly constructed you know it's so people what people say and what they do is the complete opposite the stranger comes into a familiar setting everything changes then he leaves but it's still the same sisters sing at the end outside in the garden and just think that's which will that's a normal but nobody really really also does it so what was what was your interest in then the post human and the check off how do you get it together um it was in fact it was a very simple um thought about it that led me to do this this play which is the idea that the three sisters are caught in an eternal loop because we play them over and over again it's it's one of these classics that you can find in nearly every theater in in in Germany and all over the world that so they're being put on stage over and over again for decades and they never get to Moscow so they're caught in this eternal loop and we as an audience are part of that because we go to the theater and we know we're going to watch them not getting to Moscow and it's something that fascinated me because I thought okay this is this idea of this loop is very much part of these classics so we watch the three sisters not getting to Moscow we watch Medea killing her children over and over again we resurrect them put them back on stage and and and watch them do it again like strange puppets or avatars that we you know and and and we watch Hamlet saying to be or not to be over and over again so what is this need to to to watch the same story over and over again of people not succeeding dying and not not getting anywhere so the the three sisters for me was the idea that they're stuck in this room in a sense and never get to Moscow and I I combined it with the with Nietzsche the the idea of the eternal recurrence so that what do you do when a demon comes to you at night and asks you to live the life you're living now over and over again or just even just once again do you throw yourself on the floor with desperation and say oh my god this is hell or do you say yes I can do that so this is very existential crucial question it it's really the question of how do you live your life and is it is it is it worth living this life again for you um so that and being posed that question already does something to you of course because you take a distance you look at your life and you you think about it so for me that was the idea of this eternal loop of the three sisters then putting this question out and the idea how much of how much consciousness do they these three women have about so it's it's a meta question about this them being stuck in this situation and being watched by us uh over and over again and is there a possibility of freeing them which is not getting them to Moscow but for me it's the in a in a sense what we all have to do that we have to do it in the here and now the situation we're in so it's also a good image for the lockdown I think you're in your in your kitchen or wherever you are and this is where you have to do it and this is very difficult and we have never learnt it that's also part of meditation of course sitting on that pillow and doing it here and now and um yes so that's a very personal question that I and I used Chekhov's three sisters for it and I I could not get them there I have to say in a sense that I I I so that's something also in my work that I always watched um characters on stage the characters I created not being able to reach this kind of consciousness and I thought I have to I have to make a work where this at least happens at some point even if it's for a short moment because if I if I don't then why would I think it's possible so but but I guess it's it's it's connected to my own path in a sense it's not it's not something that's um you know that I I have experienced it and now I'm going to show it on stage no it's something that I'm also struggling with and searching for so I with Ultra World it was something that I thought okay let's have the main character have a journey a kind of hero's journey where there might be the possibility of understanding something or experience something at the end where he can break through the idea this illusion that he has created about about his own reality and and be able to access something else what that something else is I don't know but I wanted it to to try it on stage and see if if it was possible so in a way still a Joseph Campbell hero's story but in an adapter 21st century lab experiment for for for theater so how did you visualize I think there were aliens involved like just for our listeners and me would be interested for the three sisters how did you show these a loop how did you approach that visually and dramatically in the dramaturgy um so it was also because we work a lot with so the idea of the virtual reality we always think because the work is of course very important that I work with a team of artists together that video sound installation it's very important so we created a set where there was a little white cube as high up and around it was a projection but a projection of a different room so it was a room within a room it was 3d within 2d and that created a already a very strange effect as if as if the three sisters were in some kind of strange space shuttle or something like that and then I had actually the whole play consisted of practically I think one scene out of checkoff but variations of it um so there was always a little variation of the scene but in between there were blackouts with really loud noise and then the light went back on again and the scene was a bit changed so sometimes they wore masks sometimes suddenly there were older women on stage sometimes you could see them act the actors in their private clothing so it was uh the same scene but as if it was in parallel worlds or in different time frames uh some more in kind of checkoffs checkoffs time maybe but not I mean we didn't use costumes like that but it could have been and then suddenly very modern and then suddenly going back again and then suddenly they looked like aliens and then suddenly so it was very much switching bam bam bam from one reality to the next and as if it was different three sisters in in parallel realities and we really tried to use the um theater machines to be able to do that we wanted to create some kind of magic I think because I had this idea how can we switch from one scene to the next but not like in theater but as if it were film in a sense and so we really worked worked on that and I think I think it's it had that effect eventually yeah from what I could see and read about it stunning because it's easy to have ideas and what you're talking about but to find something on stage that's works and you did this is it's astonishing and stunning and and also makes us you know look with big eyes it was wonder again on something that we think we knew and we all have seen so many and of the of the three sisters how do you match the images let's say in the ultra world with the with the words perhaps because that but the only thing that I was thinking about the visual was so strong these worlds where um um the projections you use the clarity of it the crispness um and then the writing how do how do you approach it can that really match or how do you how do you select the words for example the language you also put as a layer on the movements and these incredible costumes and by lighting but also the projection how do you how do you choose it and what's the reason um with ultra world I was of course different than three sisters because I kind of composed it myself and I use um text very much in the sense like text passes through us every day so what we read on the internet what we uh talk to say to each other in conversations a lot of snippets I use um from from from video games I so I sometimes watch youtube videos of interviews between I don't know actors famous actors and an interview I write that down and then I use the comments that are written underneath so it's really this is um I create text from from the masses of text that we encounter every day and you usually text that we wouldn't use in a poetic in a poetic way so um if someone says me or sends me a whatsapp message it could end up in a play because I so it's it's in a sense what I think it's called a bit this idea of um uncreative writing Kenneth Goldsmith I think his name is Kenneth Goldsmith yeah Kenneth's a great who runs Ubiwab and who we also meet here on the program a great friend of our center yes that yeah that's fascinating and fascinating that idea so it's what I also talked about earlier that I that I watched two people in the street how they move and how they talk to each other but also the kind of text how we talk to each other in half sentences and then and then the grammar sometimes is not quite correct and then we say ah and then we laugh and then we start the sentence all over again this kind of um way of talking that you don't usually hear in the theater I I'm I I try to um I try to use so we um ask people to come to the studio and read the scenes that I that I um wrote but they don't actually get the whole scene but also only the lines they say but they don't have any context and they don't know what they're reacting to so it's also kind of strange the way when it's put back together again it doesn't fit quite well it's not like they play a scene but we make a new composition out of the sentences they read and then other people read the answers to a question someone else um did and you get a very um very different kind of vibe through that and that's and then sometimes people in the studio ask me questions they say how did I do that or was that the right way and we use that as well so it ends up in the performance and the actors playback that yeah I think it sounds very strange if I if I talk about it like this but um you probably would have to see it and experience it to um you know what I'm talking about and this has become more and more important so the kind of in-between talk that people do in the studio um is a big part of the of the performance in the end yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's it's fascinating that that do try to capture something real or the reality in these imaginary symbolic spaces um full of your almost a second life of virtual and existence and there are some connection to the quiet theater movement you know from that comes from Japan where you know is look at the moment you know you take a knife you cut a zucchini and say which way do I cut it and that's what life is about in a way this is you have to focus on it and know about it and um and Ken is this yeah uncreative writing ideas which are so significant um what I find most uh fascinating about your work and I think you touched on it about the reaction of the audience member and um Thomas Oberander who also connected and I want to thank Thomas and he talked also about you and spoke about and sent me a podcast from Thomas Metzinger German philosopher um who talks about virtual realities and that what we see our mind processes reality we think it's real but it's a dream we just constructed our nerves our brain our cells create something and we don't know it and we have no chance of escaping and um so the idea of that kind of a virtual reality which you touch on and so are you are you interested in that and the ideas of Metzinger what what do they mean to you yes I'm so it's it's this idea of the reality I'm being told that is this reality I I sometimes doubt it let's let's say it like this and I'm trying to find means to um to to take a different observation point and look at it in a different way so that what you say it's a construct a construct we we make ourselves and the society we're in it's very much a construct we we we're being born and we get handed a script immediately that we have to learn by heart and then we we do it and we but we think it's our own words so we think but I'm an individual what I'm saying is very unique but and we we we we don't realize that often we're talking in scripts that we're being you know that were being written for us by by whom I mean it's that's a whole different question so I'm trying to find out how can I so I haven't I have this feeling in a sense but how do I find out about it and there are of course ancient sacred practices that deal with it it's in in in every um sacred tradition is the idea of awakening so you wake up and you realize that it was a dream and you wake up in a different um yeah in a different state of being where you suddenly see that it was all an illusion but an important illusion it doesn't mean that this doesn't matter or it's not important so I'm always trying to find um people who can talk about it in a way that I can access it because it seems when you first hear about that or think about it it seems very far away or something you think how can I possibly you know it's uh it's it's the idea of enlightenment I guess but awakening I find that word very very interesting so what does it mean what I dreamt last night is it less real than what I experienced during the day because that's what we think dreams do not you know they're not important that's just something I had this strange dream and you forget about it this as soon as you wake up what if life itself is a very strange dream so I'm very fascinated about this and I mean when you saw ultra world I mean you also probably saw that the idea of like this film matrix it's very much this idea you know that we're in this matrix and how can we um surpass it how can we um find our way out of it and then the matrix is in your own head it's I'm not so much interested in this idea that you know we're kept in a system that controls us this is I think in the matrix it doesn't go far enough so it's the idea is you are your own controller um of course it's part of a system but so I'm trying to make theater that that sort of deals with that yeah and I and I do think this is the great contribution also then of your work to radically show that the vision of our world is also already a virtual vision that what we have on our head which I think Richard Foreman once said at the theater we see our entire body we don't see our heads which is odd but we don't think about it and but that what we have over our shoulders is kind of a headset already it's a VR set that experience a world we kind of combine together and we don't really know it it's a dreamlike we accept it as a reality but it's not and um and that perhaps for that moment to question what's our own reality and a reality on a stage this little irritation like your audience members that now what's real was that's real and you make you aware of it and this metzger says we will never be able to escape this what as you also say what we have to perform the gender roles in us to the spotters that we are told how we behave as men women and all that but what we can do is to become aware of the process of recognition of the process of working through what we perceive to know we are processing something which he claims also slow drags whatever you know you see the wall moving and talking says no it's not but you are a bit closer how you perceive the world that it's different than you think and what gets put over so I think the idea of theater as a questioning model modus apparatus robot that uh might be able for a moment to help us to understand these these world these immersive world as tomas would say the immersion work he does also a emerald and that is sensational so what what are you what are your thoughts now did this time of corona did it deepen this do we have new projects do you say no I'm going to do this not anymore but I'm going to focus on something else where does this lead you these really I think also in Germany was two months at least or two and a half of um you would say of of silence or taking time out of normal life what is there something in your upcoming work it's it's funny how this coincides with my plans because I decided to take time out so I'm not going to do another production for the next more than one and a half years um so it's actually I I I'm prolonging this time of incubation in a sense for myself and to try and go deeper because of course always I'm I'm using the using the work to do that but you always have to put out a new production or your you have to I mean I'm also lucky in that I can do that but um but I have a great longing for um for thinking studying researching going deeper experience and also yeah immersing myself in in some kind of practice so that's what I'm what I'm going to do and I think um that I hope that um I will you know I can I can go further and deeper in that path that I'm I'm already walking on um but I have the feeling you always need some time to reflect on what you've done and and and not run into the next uh project again so I'm I'm I'm going to do that in the next one is I think going to be about female mystics but that's still just a very vague idea but I can help you out one thing and or something yeah yeah yeah but if you say I want to go deeper what does it how do you actually do that what do you do like you get up in the morning your your boyfriend you're in in the south of Germany but um how do you go deeper for you know what do you do how do you go deeper I asked the oracle that and I got a really pornographic answer to it so yeah well go deeper I mean yeah so um I what I what I want to do is go back to the bible I decided to go and study the bible because I think now I have the more the tools to to read the text in a way that I've never been able to read it before so that's something I want to do um and that that means getting up uh sitting down uh reading um writing and then just see what comes out of that um but also like I said I have a few um like Hildegard von Bingen Jean Dark that because it's always men I encounter also when I talk about the great masters it's it's it's men so I'm interested in what is a female voice what are the female voices in that um what mystical experiences and then talked about it in what kind of language were they talking about it so it's really reading these texts and then and then um and then seeing where it takes me and that's that's the exciting thing that now I don't have to produce something I can see where where it wherever it it it takes me and um yes it's very much sitting at the table reading I guess like ancient almost monkish practice yeah yes yes yes that's something that I have a great longing for I have to say yeah and the idea also then you know of question of reality and finding that mystical experience or what we say in great theater and the experience that um which sometimes happens perhaps in sports you know you watch 100 games but one game is especially you watch so many plays but sometimes there's something that touches you so deeply and changes your life and that there were practices as you say ancient practices of mystic is you know people who do meditation or yogis to try to capture what's beyond what we normally perceive as reality and if it is if there's as they are there as Gertrude Stein would say so you studied art in Amsterdam you did not study theater performance or was it a hybrid form how what how did you get into theater no it was it was theater directing so it was very much yeah so it was it started out quite in a classic way I guess well in Holland it's a bit it's not as uh you don't work so much on the big stage but more in the black box theater it was a very direct kind of um theater style where audience and performers are very close to each other and the distance is not so big as in most big German theaters I would say I mean so I started out as very much um yeah like making theater work like everybody else I I I think it's uh and um so yes it took me quite some time to find this form and that I'm using now it was not something that I had access to right away what was the moment when you said this is do you remember is that was that a rehearsal a day or play or it was a play that I did in Munich and um it's when we decided we were halfway through the rehearsals and we decided okay we're going to do it all playback uh so the actors are not going to talk on stage anymore and and it was very difficult decision for me to make because I thought am I allowed to do that so because so that's something it's also talking about this idea construction in your own head that you think this is how theater is supposed to be uh and I cannot I have to you know follow that so making this step and it was kind of sleepless night where I thought um okay if I don't do it now because I'm afraid then I have to stop so it was very clear that thought and um if then I came back to the rehearsal room and said to everyone okay let's do it and now it doesn't sound like such a big thing but then it was as if I had opened the door within myself where I thought okay if I can do this then I can do anything and that was very freeing um but I had to I had to open this door myself of course and um before I hadn't I hadn't been been able to do that so that was um very liberating I have to say and now I have the feeling anything is possible anything is possible on stage and in life I think that's it's quite amazing especially in Germany if there's anything we Germans are proud of the Sprechtheater the spoken theater the training that goes into voice and speaking on the stage and to say no we use recording and we as a comment you know we also listen to the technological voice which we are used to through the speaker as a film so it's quite a quite a quite an invention especially if you say it helps you to find what the essential questions are really about or that incubation time that perhaps theater could be the oracle that that gives you answers for things you you are looking for I mean it's stunning that Berlin produces artists like you or Ida Müller or Bigger Winger who also has a fantastic artist in an idiosyncratic way to to express the world who also started out with the Nipsen because also they said this is what you put on the form in Norway so you get money for first productions but still it goes beyond that in their research into that work who did you who are your heroes who do you look up to in the if you look in the contemporary world of theater and performance who's whose work do you follow in theater and performance well just whom you mentioned just now we got Winger and Ida Müller I saw a work of theirs also Ipsen and it was 12 hours long and it was a whole night through and I was I was somewhere else I don't know it was so incredible this feeling and I thought if oh if theater can do this so I was I was I was high when I watched that it was really I've never experienced anything else so I'm I'm I'm very grateful they're artists like this and it goes far as they they they do it's yes it's very courageous and so yeah they are I'm a big fan of their work I haven't seen anything in a long time now because they hadn't produced in Germany for quite some time now so I hope they will come back with something very much hope so yeah so they they they are very who else is part of your system of thinking I'm Romeo Castellucci someone that I greatly admire also also that he tries to go to places he could call in a sense nearly mystical or he tries to reach do something else in the theater that you don't usually see that's that's so he I saw his work at the Routrinale also a few years ago Sacre du Printemps and it was these machines that were dancing to it and it was one of the most beautiful dances I ever saw and it was machines and they were spreading white bone powder all over the stage and this is it was from cows I think from powder from cows and in the end when the performance was finished two human beings in white protection suits came in to clean the stage so I thought that was beautiful so the machines did the this very very poetic dance and it was two human beings in the end that cleaned up the stage that was to me that they had a great influence on me that that performance I have to say yeah that's stunning and who what else are you coming closer to the end what do you read or listen to in this time of corner or in general next to what you already mentioned what what research do you also do or what secret vices you might have about what do you what what do you yeah so I read a lot of what you would call I guess esoteric texts very much that I'm there's an author called Peter Kingsley and he I was it was through him that I discovered the ancient Greek practices and he and also he wrote a book about Sege Jung so that's something I'm I'm I'm I'm also working on and I I bought the red book I have that too the big one the facsimile well I gave it to my partner for his birthday but I used it immediately so it's and that's fascinating so that's work and of course it takes you I mean it takes you years and years and years to even begin to uncover or discover the magnitude for it isn't does and I so I'm turning 43 this summer and I think I need it to I think you need to be at least 40 before you can start this kind of work it's it's it's second half of life that you I couldn't have done this you know 10 years ago or something like that so it's just now that I I'm I feel I can get a bit closer to to understand or be able to experience it myself the the to be able to understand these ideas of these people so it's very much and I I don't know I read so much I read like I don't know five books the same time and always take notes from this now what are your five books at the moment oh my god I I'm reading the souls code by James Hillman which is yeah I know very much you know it yes yeah I met him once and had a conversation I haven't loved many of his books souls code about the question of the soul and where he got so attacked by the world of reintroducing that term and he quotes artists as their yes heroes you know that's a stunning book yeah on the biographies and it's very interesting to that we and I also think that would help so much that we don't look at our lives as something that you know a kind of trauma and something we were not able to do and it's our parents fault but very much this idea of Plato that you are in heaven and your soul chooses it's lot so it's destiny and it chooses it very consciously and all the hard things that you're going to experience and then you pass through I don't know what it's called but you you pass through different stages and then you're born and you forget it all but it's this idea and of the diamond that you have something in you that wants to be realized but it's also it can be a very hard fate that you have to live through so and that of course with all kind of idea therapy and asking the questions why did this happen to me and turn it around and say it's it's this you kind of for your soul chose and it's your path I think it's very I think he says it's a mixture like I think God sits on the throne the souls well around and by chance and by choice you come something what you choose and your life's work is to get through that as a mythical or a adventure which you choose to take on and he says it's a way to at least to look at the world you know and to understand and deal with it like the old Greeks and the Ulysses and all of it great and what else is on your plate what else because I just brought a few books what did I bring what else I'm reading I got into I have something here can you read it it's Russian fairy tales and it's the have you ever heard of Baba Yaga it's this witch in the in the in the forest and it's very much also this initiation idea that you have to go to the dark forest and meet the witch in order to grow up and to be full individual and you have to she nearly you know if you don't you have to have solve three she asks you questions and you have to do the work for her and if you don't do it correctly she will eat you up but if you do it you can come back and she gives you the fire you can come back and so I'm reading this to my daughter at the moment but I also use it for myself because of course it's very rich and so it's a kind of idea of fairy tales myth and how can you how can you use them so that's something I just discovered these these these these Russian fairy tales so yeah that's incredible quite an eclectic a mixture and that's how how it should be like also our talks but this was really a fantastic moment really really thank you for for sharing what's on your mind and be in the moment also for for this conversation I think it's a great of great interesting to to to to our listeners and me especially and everybody else and to see how does it how is the mechanics how does it work what does one think about what what is the dramaturgy of theta but also of life and how do we approach things and I think you really found answers and they're stunning and stunning ones I don't think your work has been to the US no they're trying to get it to New York but what's the will be will be tough in case you want to do your one year and a half research and not going out and under confinement just move here will be much easier than in Berlin Munich I think I've opened I'm not sure if it's as much fun but but yeah I think you know really this was a great great privilege to to to hear from you and to and to know what's what's on your on your mind and it's a fantastic way of of sharing and I hope you also told us it will give them some some peace of mind to see how how how you are listened to yesterday with pink Chong is a great New York artist Asian American who grew up in Chinatown and he talked about his live how he works and he can still go out so he made in spite by Burgess a film and looked at all the things in his apartment as an infinite world where you can travel at least with your mind and you're free and if you're able to do it but you do this also in your work tomorrow at the seagull talk we have the great Mabu Mines a staple of New York cedar lee brewer and more Mitchell and they will talk about what the time of corona means for them and Thursday we have Tiago Rodriguez do you know about him a great portuguese director I heard about him yeah yeah fantastic work he did that work out the prompter either the souffleuse and theater that idea what it what it means and carry that switcher member of the latinx as we would say a community a playwright a translate on essayist I think originally from Cuba they will she will and share her work Sumi also going to have chacrons here I think will join us and we will hear from tap dancers and and many many others so really thank you for taking the time thanks for howl around for hosting us VJ and thea and Travis and to the sequel team Andy and some young and Susanna I hope I didn't take you away for too long and from from your from your time with your family and I'm sure you're going to have now a nice bottom Wurttemberg dinner waiting for one of the two families who are competing for sure to to make you all happy so it's really fantastic congratulation all your work and it's so interesting and to to to know what you are doing it's important we need to listen to artists in these times of corona confinement and it's important what Susanna said about the that past the incubation time to prepare yourself what she did symbolically in her oracle piece that you lie down you listen you think and you're ready and you ask the right question you might get some answers but you still will have to make yourself the sense out of the answers you get and this is what differs our time perhaps from the 20s 19th century where everything was given to you as a meaning as God given but it's no longer we have to create our own it's part of a suffering which we experience but also a part is Susanna said of a great great freedom and to be in the moment and to accept where we are is a great reminder for also to change authentically and to engage in the in the world so thank you so much and I hope for all listeners you will join us back and it's important that we have great theater performance but also a great audience but also to understand that what we talk about is about you the listener the audience member the spectator and to be part of of that great change this has already taken place it's taking place and we might not see it because we are too close or we are too insulin our own virtual headsets and so thank you so much and thanks for Thomas Ober and again for connecting us I hear you're also producing a book or he's putting out a book about you and with essays so I can't wait to hear about it so goodbye and I hope one day we'll see you and you're working in New York bye-bye thank you bye-bye