Tauberbach, directed by Alain Platel, at the Münchner Kammerspiele, January 17 & 18; February 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22; June 9-12
Belgian director Alain Platel is one of the strangest, yet most humanistic, of today's artists. Considered to be in the top ten of Europe's most notable directors, his power lies in getting the characters on stage to open up to their very core.
Platel's latest work was created in collaboration with the Dutch actress, Elsie de Brauw, and the contemporary ballet company "les ballets C de la B". Tauberbach was inspired, in part, by Marcos Prados' documentary, "Estamira", about a woman who lives in a rubbish dump. How to survive and, at the same time, not loose your human dignity - that is the central theme in this work by Platel.
The second source of inspiration for the piece was the project "Tauber Bach", by composer Artur Zmijewski, in which deaf singers perform music by Bach. "When people hear this music for the first time, they are deeply shocked," says Platel. "It can barely be called singing - it is more like howling, or growling. And only somewhere, far in the distance, can one hear Bach's music. But in the head of the deaf singer, all of the notes are true."