MEMORY IS FRAGILEGARBAGE LASTS FOREVER

INDEXCONSTANZA MACRAS |DORKYPARKSHOWSOPEN FOR EVERYTHING HERE/AFTER BERLIN ELSEWHERE THE OFFSIDE RULES MEGALOPOLIS OEDIPUS REXHELL ON EARTH BRICKLANDI´M NOT THE ONLY ONESURE, SHALL WE TALK ABOUT IT?NO WONDERBIG IN BOMBAYBACK TO THE PRESENTUPCOMING PIECES PIECES FOR TOURING TOURINGCONTACT

CONSTANZA MACRAS

Constanza Macras was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she studied dance and fashion design, at the Buenos Aires University (UBA). She continued her dance studies in Amsterdam and New York (Merce Cunningham Studios). In 1995, Macras moved to Berlin and danced for various companies. In 1997, she founded her own first company TAMAGOTCHI Y2K.

Between 1998 and 2000, TAMAGOTCHI Y2K presented four pieces: Wild Switzerland (1998), Face One (1999), In Between (2000) and Dolce Vita (2000), a site-specific live music performance that com-bined artists from various disciplines. It was created as a one-time event for each specific location.

From 2001 to 2002, Macras developed and presented the trilogy MIR: A Love Story.In 2002, she also curated the project ‘PORNOsotros’, where she per-formed together with Lisi Estaras (Ballets C. de la B.) under the direc-tion of different directors four short pieces dealing with the subject of pornography at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin .

She taught workshops and master classes in Japan, the United States (Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, ‘On the Boards’ in Seattle, India Atakalari Dance Center), France, Italy (Rome University for Perform-ing Arts), Belgium (Antwerp University), the Netherlands (Henny Jurriëns Foundation), Switzerland and Germany (Hochschule für Schauspielkunst ‘Ernst Busch’ Berlin and at the University of Arts UdK Berlin).

In 2008 Constanza Macras received the GOETHE-INSTITUT Award for an outstanding German production for her piece Hell On Earth.

In 2010 she was awarded with the Arts at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) William L. Abramowitz Residency. Since 1961, the series has brought renowned performing artists and writers to MIT to perform, present public lectures, and collaborate with students in free programs.

In the same year Constanza Macras was awarded the national German theater-prize DER FAUST for best choreography for the piece Megalopolis.

Next to her productions with her company Constanza Macras | DorkyPark, Constanza Macras has also created:

- Paraíso sem Concolação (2008) a commission work of the GOETHE-INSTITUT São Paulo with dancers from the company and a Brazilian cast. Premiered in São Paulo.- Ein Sommernachtstraum (2006) together with Thomas Ostermeier, the Schaubühne ensemble and dancers from Constanza Macras | DorkyPark. Premiered at the Hellenic Festival.- Pegarle a la Bolsa (2004) a commission from the GOETHE-INSTITUT Cordoba (Argentina).- Happiness (2003) for the ballet of the Saarländisches Staatstheater.

CONSTANZA MACRAS | DORKYPARK

In 2003 Constanza Macras | DorkyPark was created by Constanza Macras and dramaturge Carmen Mehnert. The company integrates dancers, actors and musicians with performers that range from 4 to 72 years old, combining text, live music, dance and video. Constanza Macras | DorkyPark has toured in Korea, Japan, India, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, South Africa, The United States of America and has been invited to various European venues and festivals like Festival d’Avignon in France and Aarhus Festival in Denmark.

The company and its productions are supported by Capital Cultural Fund and the Govern-ing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs and the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Furthermore, the company works regularly with HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden and Berlin based venues such as Hebbel am Ufer and Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz. Constanza Macras and her company have been supported by and collaborating with the GOETHE-INSTITUT since 2005.

Photo: Constanza Macras

OPEN FOR EVERYTHING

OPEN FOR EVERYTHING is a travel through the stagnation of Roma communities in Europe to whom chances to work like any other citizen are rather low, where itinerant traditions have been replaced by sedentary life beside the uprootedness of the group of dancers that move around the world following working opportunities.

Since 2010 Macras has been researching the different ways of life, dance styles and music of the Roma in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the course of this work she has brought together a large ensemble comprising Roma musicians and performers, amateurs of different ages, and dancers from her company DorkyPark to perform in her new show Open for Everything. It is with great aplomb that these very different people recount their lives and their dreams, their despair and their passions. This journey uses music and dance to lead us through the lives of the European Roma of today, seizing upon, playing with, and depicting with humour the prejudices, clichés, misunderstandings, similarities, traditions, discrimination, poverty and violence. Who is making use of whose prejudices? And just who are the true nomads of the 21st century?

The production was created by Constanza Macras in cooperation with 18 Roma musicians, dancers and amateurs of different ages from Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and with six performers from the dance company CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark who come from Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the Czech Republic and South-Korea.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and the GOETHE-INSTITUT. In co-production with Wiener Festwochen, New Stage of National Theatre Prague, Trafó House of Contemporary Arts Budapest, Interna-tional Theatre Festival Divadelná Nitra, Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden, Dansens Hus Stockholm and Zürcher Theater Spektakel.Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs and the Open Society Foundations- with contribution of the Arts and Culture Program of Budapest.

Photo: Thomas Aurin

“In the show’s programme, Macras claims to hate the “theatre of commis-eration”, and she manages to tread the fine line between being deeply moved and falling into commiseration without ever stepping over it. Her two years of research have resulted in an evening full of lust for life and music, a Roma revue that nonetheless refers to poverty and dearth of opportunity in powerful images and with a sense of self-irony.” Wiener Zeitung, May 2012 “A disparate, non-folkloristic picture of life emerges, one that is full of difficulty and yet life-affirming. Macras looks at her subject head on – she doesn’t want victim art or romanticising, what she wants is for all performers on the stage to be equal, and this she achieves.” dradio Kultur, May 2012

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and HAU Berlin. Funded by Hauptstadt-kulturfonds and the Regierenden Bürgermeister von Berlin – Senatskanzlei – Kulturelle Angelegenheiten.

HERE/AFTER

Agoraphobia is the fear of certain, especially public and vast spaces, as well as of masses of people. In the Western world agoraphobia is actually the phobia that is diagnosed most often. It causes panic attacks, in many cases people no longer dare to go out of their homes. Although medicine has a tendency to consider it as a psychological, even physiological defect of the individual some critical studies point out to a necessity to look for the reasons for this illness in the nature and in the circumstances of the space itself – meaning to analyse the city as a possible cause.

In HERE/AFTER Constanza Macras along with four performers and one musician seeks to find out more about this clinical pattern with all its peculiarities like hyperventilation, panic attacks, dizziness and disorientation. Does everyday life in a metropolis pose a threat to the people? Are panic attacks in a shopping mall not a natural human form of defense, and why do they have to be treated in a therapy? This play explores the relation between anonymity and growing isolation, of the individual and urban life, of public spaces and their pathological manifestations. We will see flats with nightmarish narrowness, we will encounter two women who live together and who come up with all kinds of excuses to convince one another not having to leave home anymore. There will be a lonely musician whose only dream to become a rockstar ends with his terrible fear of big gatherings of people; a foreigner who never speaks; and a delivery man who is the only link between these people and the dreaded “outside”. Never before has it been so easy to be “by oneself” in a society which makes a confrontation with the “outside” avoidable through the sheer endless possibilities of communicating via the internet, chatrooms and delivery services. And actually what is it out there that one absolutely has to experience live?

Special Thanks to:

Phot

o: Th

omas

Aur

in

“Agoraphobia is a rather healthy response to a rather unhealthy environment, says Macras, and her performers confirm that with charm and crackling persuasiveness.”Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 2011

“For Macras, Here/After is a down-right concentrated work. Instead of fraying the scenes into a whirlwind of multiple parallel actions, like in “Megalopolis”, most of the images and situations are quite clearly structured.”www.tanznetz.de, December 2011

BERLIN ELSEWHERE

In BERLIN ELSEWHERE strangers meet at a place of mental captivity. They’re suffering from com-mon social maladies, neurosis, bipolarity, fetishism, and fetishism of commodities. A place that is somewhere between exclusion, madness, and struggle. Madness and segregation are presented as a consequence of one another and mirroring factors. Segregation is a form of madness and madness promotes segregation. What kind of Madness does our society permit before someone is confined? What is confinement in the era of medication? Our society still shares the assumption with the classic era that the loss of civil rights are akin to madness, immigration, and poverty. There is a strong parallel in the random questions that are posed in the evaluation of a patient on the verge of being sectioned as »mad« and those posed to an immigrant applying for residency in the EU after marrying a European partner. The daily mechanisms of exclusion start in childhood and are an expression of the society we live in. As one character says: »You can’t just do yoga all the time, you need to greet the doorman once in a while«. Interdependencies between poverty, madness and civil rights have not changed for centuries, it seems. The city of Berlin is the perfect example of a »locked up« and »excluded« city, where segregation, madness, and confinement have historically played a strong role: Unemployed people from the new federal states who were unable to get a foot in the door in the years following reunification; Immigrants who studied in East Berlin and were able to live in the city legally but lost their civil rights with the fall of the Wall, were stranded without the option to return to »their« countries. Passengers par excellence, like the medieval ships of fools, whose passengers did not fit the fixed social norms and were abandoned to the endless waters. Who can tell for certain who was on board of those ships? We’re left with the uneasy presentiment that a long lost ship might one day return, or that such ships might again be created, clandestinely, and set off anew, again and again. As a consolation we will always have the BBC to show that it is much worse somewhere else. The madness can begin, in BERLIN ELSEWHERE.A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin and in co-production with HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden, Maison des Arts de Créteil, the Perspectives Festival Saarbrücken and tanzhaus nrw. Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs

„’Berlin Elsewhere’ has everything that a good theater play needs: esprit and drama, irony and profound significance.“Berliner Morgenpost, April 2011

“So far no one has linked the marks of eastern Germany with Amsterdam, Sin-gapore, Tokyo and Curitiba, as confident as the Argentinean Constanza Macras who lives in Berlin. And obviously no one is capable right now of such secure intuition like this choreographer, who is curious and strong in statements.“Neues Deutschland, April 2011

“Berlin Elsewhere sugessts that the prototype city is somewhere else. The girl from Korea, who dreams of Korean becoming a universal language, the Brasilian man who has escaped the favelas with dance, the destitute woman from the ex-GDR, who wishes that she could turn back time, none of them are interpreters anymore, but fragments of a contstantly changing world. Sometimes desperate, sometimes hopeful.“Hystrio, January 2012

Photo: Thomas Aurin

THE OFFSIDE RULES

In this special collaboration, three performers from Constanza Macras’ company will team up with dancers from Johannesburg to reflect on the first African World Cup.Macras sees Johannesburg as the country’s premier urban landscape, representing the space where the evolving story of the new South Africa is most fully played out. The city is represen-tational of both the Utopian dreams of the reconciled Rainbow Nation and the dystopia of an urban space under siege. Typical of such a growing metropolis is that an integral part of urban society can be seen in the divide between the anxious rich and the desperately poor. Patterns of differentiation reinforce structural inequalities deeply integrated in the cityscape – but also reflect an emergent spatial logic governing the organisation of the uses and meaning of the urban space after apartheid. The piece looks at the meeting of characters promoted by the public transport system and the role of football in politics and economy. It is not the first time that a soccer World Cup is taking place in a socially or politically charged environment, where it could play a role in covering, ac-celerating or confronting the actual situations in the country. Another example is the 1978 World Cup in Argentina where Macras was born. Will the euphoria of the event reconcile differences? Or will it accentuate existing conflicts? How accessible are its benefits to everybody?

These are the questions at the heart of The Offside Rules, which forms part of the ‘Football Meets Culture’ programme being promoted by the Goethe Institute, the German Embassy and their partners.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark, the Market Theatre Johannesburg and the GOETHE-INSTITUT South Africa.

“The Presentation is compelling and unusual. There are parts you might not like. There are parts that will confuse you. But what is undoubtedly the delight in this work is the unexpected clash of imagery, the excitement of “what’s going on now?” that keeps you watching.”Times LIVE South-Africa, May 2010

“These are the “Offside Rules” – rules that are far offside the wide streets for those who want to fit in with the social norm. Here, dance develops a strong sense of its own political force beyond complaints about petty griev-ances. And when all of the dancers drum that powerful rhythm together, one simply cannot escape their fierce energy as they assert themselves.”Badische Zeitung, February 2011

Phot

o: M

arke

t The

atre

Joha

nnes

burg

MEGALOPOLIS

MEGALOPOLIS is not a specific, but a metaphorical place. The scene is the city under the impact of globalism. The city is characterized by the illegibility of today’s megacities, born into chaos. Its features are unbridled growth, decay and endless disbandment. The city’s density and tightness dissolve the borderline between private and public sphere, it almost disappears. At the same time, this boundlessness forces us to perceive the city as collage which consists of countless bio-graphical scraps. The fight of two street vendors for the best spot is an existential confrontation today – but will be forgotten tomorrow. Megacities are a paradigm for spaces in which people live without knowing each other. The ever present surveillance system not only constantly creates su-pervised beings; it also produces a new form of self-perception. Thus, a person’s body transforms into an expressive device that creates as well as destroys systems and rules. Which correlations are still valid here? Will the urban development follow principles unknown to us? Is the discern-able decay of social relations a cause or an effect of our city’s apparent deterioration?MEGALOPOLIS is a promise and a curse. MEGALOPOLIS is a beaming city. MEGALOPOLIS is an uncontrollable construct, constantly in motion.

Constanza Macras was awarded with the German national theater-award DER FAUST for best choreography for MEGALOPOLIS in November 2010.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, in co-production with HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden and MESS Sarajevo. Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs.

““Having many dancers with diverse ethnic backgrounds, the show by Dorky Park also presents an interesting over-view of the stereotypes and clichés of ethnic minorities. (...)The Korean Herald, October 2011

„With „Megalopolis“ the choreogra-pher strikes out to her global coup and her “DorkyPark” – performer are the perfect instrument for it. As fast as they change trousers, shirts and high heels, they modify the colors of their figures.”Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 2010

„Between the athletic, dynamic pictures of the ensemble Constanza Macras choreographs solo scenes full of melancholy, depression and rebel-lion. (…) Constanza Macras doesn’t want to teach the audience a lesson, but what she has to say, she communi-cates precisely and impressively with humor and sensuality.”Märkische Oderzeitung, January 2010

Photo: Thomas Aurin

OEDIPUS REX

Around 400 B.C. Sophocles created a stage play based on the ancient Myth of Oedipus tyrannous. 2400 years later this play is still relevant. Not at least inspired by Freud and his work on Oedipus, along with the ideas of Modernity, Igor Stravinsky and Jean Cocteau created their own version of the myth in Paris in 1926. The forlorn, fallen and hollowed out industrial set design parallels the archaism of OEDIPUS REX as witness to a past epoch. Constanza Macras designs tableaux vivants in her choreography that are inspired by the photographic hyperrealism of Gregory Crewdson and the staged photographs of Jeff Walls.The protagonist Oedipus is embodied by different performers, both male and female, in different scenes, which amplifies the disassociation of OEDIPUS REX. OEDIPUS REX, consciously con-ceived by Cocteau and Stravinsky as musical theater beyond the confines of opera, is predestined to examine new forms of presentation in new places. At the same time, Macras’ production has been a premiere: none other than Hans Magnus Enzensberger specifically for this performance translated the narrator’s lines.The stage design is created by the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota with whom Constanza Macras also collaborated in the project IN SILENCE at the Kanagawa Art Foundation Yokohama in 2008.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark, HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts Dresden and Dresdner Philharmonie. In co-production with Hebbel am Ufer Berlin and Théâtre de la Place Liège. Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs.

“(…)One visual exclamation mark after another was once again supplied by the choreographer Constanza Macras’ dance ensemble DorkyPark, who have already performed in Dresden numerous times. Beneath a tangled-up stage design by Chiharu Shiota, from which items of furniture on ropes were gradually dropped, the piece deals with incest, betrayal, prophecy and conflict.”Sächsische Zeitung, November 2009

“One can however certainly congratu-late the Hellerau team on this pilot production: the dancers have a brilliant presence, strong and tender, even moving, for example, in one moment of great vision, when they carry each other and suffer each other so delightfully.”tanznetz.de, November 2009

Phot

o: Th

omas

Aur

in

HELL ON EARTH

The district of Neukölln houses more migrants than natives and is one of Berlin’s trouble hotspots. For years, the social problems have been suppressed and concealed. However, the riots in the suburbs of Paris in 2005 have also drawn attention to troubled neighborhoods in Berlin, such as Neukölln.Based on her experiences with the young dancers in the production SCRATCH NEUKÖLLN at HAU1 Berlin in 2003, Constanza Macras offers the now teenagers of Neukölln another stage in HELL ON EARTH. They tell from their live experiences, not from a children’s perspective, but rather from a young adult’s point of view: of hopes and troubles becoming adults. Of daily endured discrimination. Of the wish to adapt. Of the problems accompanying that wish.Of particular interest is the development of a gender identity in this production, one of the main points in adolescence. It especially focuses on the evolvement of young women since they have to face more limits than their male counterparts. An additional theme is the interference of female and male concepts of the body and of gender. Thus, the question is: How do adolescent teenagers with an immigrant background cope with the multilayered feeling of foreignness. HELL ON EARTH therefore affords them room to thrive and present themselves an option they are often deprived of.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and HAU Berlin. In co-production with Kampnagel Hamburg. Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs

“(…) Constanza Macras’ new dance piece “Hell on Earth” in Berlin’s HAU Theater is full of scenes in which cli-chés about immigrants and their strong ideas of gender roles are simultane-ously exhibited with aplomb, brought to their logical conclusion, and then recoded – all so laid-back and free from pedagogical twitches so that the only thing remaining from everything that makes life difficult between cultures and in the lower margins of society is joyfully exploited material. (…) And exactly as the people onstage piece together their sense of self and self-dramatization from many cultures, so too are Macras’ elements of style a mix of pop culture, smatterings of theory, choreographed scenes and moments of real feeling. The ravishing evening is a hybrid beyond the German purity law.” Süddeutsche Zeitung, April, 2008

Phot

o: Th

omas

Aur

in

BRICKLAND

The journey is finished, it is time to settle down, to find a place where to plant a tree and build a house. A piece of land surrounded by security cameras isolated from the violence of the city.

The new setting is the eponymous BRICKLAND. Named after a vacant residential development in Buenos Aires, birth place of Constanza Macras we see this venue not as a concrete location, but rather as a symbol for many other cities in the globalized world that are, in essence, interchange-able: gated communities as we know them from the United States, South America, India or China. Similar to Atom Egoyan’s film The Adjuster (Canada, 1991), in which an insurance agent named Noah visits refugees in a boat-like motel, these cities are not a home, but rather a hopeless ref-uge. BRICKLAND oscillates between the impression of wretchedness and desperate attempts at the idyll; it can and should be understood as a metaphor for the increasing “ghettoization” of our world and the rapid increase in urban slums, in which sayings like “there’s no place like home” are sheer derision or nothing more than vacuous platitudes. In these places, you can only travel virtually, similar to the journeys you can do in Second Life but physically nobody leaves.

BRICKLAND is a facade that conceals chaos, despair, social isolation, madness and bourgeois ennui.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin in co-production with DuoDijon, Kampnagel Hamburg, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara and Théâtre de la Place, Liège.Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur.

“Constanza Macras’ choreographies unpredictable powers are at work. Right at the beginning of Brickland there is a powerful ensemble scene, nine muscular bodies collapse rhythmically, their arms stretched to the sky, their hands folded as if in prayer. (...) The sound of angels sighing and in this brash performance we see a heretical rite for our post-religious epoch, and above all shines in bright letters: “Fog of Confusion”. This preludes the evening: It is about nothing less than mankind’s futile search for a place in the universe, a place in history and an aim in life.” – Die Zeit, December 2007

“With jumps and dislocated movements, the bodies shrink back and expand into the space. Macras’ visual language is full of power, full of vitality and strength. The dance is energetic, partners form duets that are affected by the force they evoke, with their arms cutting through the air and legs lifting up and falling down with a crash on the floor. (...), her dancers rise and fall in an almost brutal way.”El Espectador, Colombia March 2010

Photo: Thomas Aurin

I´M NOT THE ONLY ONE

What drives one to leave one’s homeland, and what is a homeland? Is it one’s family? Animals? Is it the smell, the food, the air? Is it the exhaust? The contradictions of our childhood that the folklore of today is made of? These questions are dealt with in mythology and target group analyses alike. Constanza Macras and her international ensemble approach these and many other themes, these inner and outward trips, in their production I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE. As always with their works, at issue are the consequences that result when various cultures clash; we assimilate and integrate everything, but how much do we really understand?I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE develops a piece of fiction that takes the actors’ various motivations for departure as a starting point. Like the heroes in fairy tales and myths, they are subject to a transformation, each in his own individual way. In this way, myth and reality, archetypes and autobiography mix. And again and again we are faced with the question: what and where was home anyway?I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE consists of two parts shown on two different evenings, each part with a different cast. Both may be viewed on their own.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin. In co-production with the Schauspielhaus Vienna, Theater Chur, Fondazione Musica per Roma and Duo Dijon. Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs.

„Macras understands embarrassment to be genuine pain and trashes stale rules (line separation, for example) in her new piece. Yes, drama doesn’t happen any more, as we know from theater. (…) Part of Constanza Macras’ success story is that, together with her dramaturge Carmen Mehnert, she beads together all things lapidary from her neo-musical with as much precision as any soap opera – indeed so much that she can deliver a sequel.”Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 2007

“Constanza Macras has succeeded in producing a very personal work that creates its power through the autobio-graphical experiences of the dancers. (…) These stories of foreigners; so deeply sad and desperately funny.”Der Tagesspiegel, January 2009

Phot

o: Th

omas

Aur

in

SURE, SHALL WE TALK ABOUT IT?

SURE – SHALL WE TALK ABOUT IT? is a piece about the expectations put over the female body related to fitness, wellness and brands performed by 11 female dancers from different countries accompanied by three musicians.

The value of a thing is as much as it will bring a commodity appears a very trivial thing. But it is certain, in reality, a very queer thing. It is clear as noon-day. That man by his industry changes the form of the materials furnished by nature in such a way as to make them useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered by making a table out of it value necessarily implies exchange riches do not.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark. Supported by NIKE.

“Feminine energy and self-irony, as well as women’s ability to look in each other’s eyes regardless of competi-tion. “Sure – shall we talk about it” is a successful piece which widely expresses the inborn irony of Argentin-ean choreographer Constanza Macras. This exploding artist is currently one of the most intriguing choreographers on the dance scene in Berlin and all over Europe. Macras’ skill in structur-ing pieces is apparent in the striking rhythm of “Sure” and in its perfectly appropriate timing. Her dance theatre is focusing both on dramaturgy and on a generous breath of choreography. Movement is finally back. There is something to learn from this Argen-tinean artist, she is showing us that contemporary dance can have rhythm and be fun.”Il Manifesto, October 2005

Photo: Sara Montali

NO WONDER

NO WONDER marks the second collaboration of Argentinians Constanza Macras and Lisi Estaras who research in the piece the gender roles in the superlative from the 70s till today. Four per-sons by themselves crashed and stranded in an undefined environment. Is this the garden they have been looking for? Now, the transformation begins: into heroines, into superheroes. And with it comes the fear and the deconstruction of their innermost. What makes an ordinary woman turn into a superhero? What are the significant parameters for this transformation? Devotion? Emotionality? Intuition? Poetry? Or is it the highest form of omnipotency, the suicide? This is how true heroines look like: They are vulnerable, angry, desperate and on the verge of breakdown. On their search for identity through the small everyday occurrences they hear God talking on the radio. But how does one use this knowledge if carnival always takes place at the same time, whether one likes it or not.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | Dorky Park with HAU Berlin and Théâtre Le Maillon Strasbourg. Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Department for Cultural Affairs

“In her piece “No Wonder”, Macras per-forms a self-examination and pushes it to the limits: a pitiless and stark exposure of herself.”Die Zeit, October 2006

“Constanza Macras is the fury of the contemporary dance scene. (…) The piece deals with a woman as such, with her enigma and the eroticization of her body, her desire to be an object, the artificiality of gender constructions. At issue is also how one can fall to shambles with the roles that demand these constructions.”Berliner Zeitung, August 2005

“With Macras, bodies take what they want. (…) For them, there exist only vehemence, excess, the orgiastic, burn-out, and this strange dream of paradise.”Ballettworks, September 2005

Phot

o: P

aul K

elle

r

BIG IN BOMBAY

A waiting room which at first sight looks like any waiting room somewhere in the world. People are hanging around, waiting and killing time. Each of them shares this time of waiting with total strangers. An eclectic mix of pop music, political slogans, delusion of consumption, Bollywood-choreographies and tele-novelas unleashes in the tradition of Bollywood. All you discover here as brand-new is already established in other parts of the world. Slogans like „no pasarán“ only decorate Che-Guevara-T-Shirts, their meaning got completely lost. Though all persons are in one room, they seem to exist in different places all over the world. Maybe everything is just the result of individual imagination. Here starts the paranoia. Their respective worlds clasp around them, keep them imprisoned in their anxiety state, in their mental leaps and guilty consciences. Why is nothing happening to me while everything in the world around me goes wrong? Time accelerates or stands already still. Everybody tries desperately to stand out from the crowd, to flee from his own reality and cultural identity. We appropriate contexts, identities and images to find out that finally every-body is doing the same. Everybody knew everything right from the start, and haven’t we met somewhere before?

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark, Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin and spielzeiteuropa /Berliner Festspiele. In co-production with sophiensaele Berlin, Schauspielhaus Vienna and Teatro Comunale di Ferrara. Funded by Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur. Kindly supported by GOETHE-INSTITUT Max Müller Bhavan Bangalore, Bombay, Delhi and Madras.

“In using scenarios of terror such as those, the Argentinean choreographer presently most in demand, Constanza Macras, puts an end to the culture of joy. In doing so, she managed to create a highly amusing and clear sighted collage, dealing with the global spirit of the age, covering all its cynicism.”Wiener Zeitung, March 2005

“(...) Defiant, even amused, she [Constanza Macras] is targeting the Disney subculture and terrorism, subconsciously with a loving humanism. The rhythmic science of the show and the urban chaos how the choreographer operates it is breathtaking.”Le Monde, November 2006

Photo: Paul Keller

BACK TO THE PRESENT

With her site-specific performance BACK TO THE PRESENT, which was performed in June and September 2003 in a former department store in the centre of Berlin, Constanza Macras goes for a journey into the Past. Memory as looped feedback. Live-performances, dance, music and videos form a space installation, wherein the audience moves around. There was also a tea-salon run by the ladies from the Ground Control and a bar hidden somewhere in the labyrinth of abandoned (deserted) rooms. Where do you go when you don’t want to deal with the past or the future? The performers of BACK TO THE PRESENT find themselves in a common space; a casting for a re-ality show like Big Brother, Survivor or Miss right. These shows are constantly recreated around the world sometimes with different names and they all have in common that they only exist in the present, in the flatness of everyday little struggles. In the end, every mission - ancient Rome, old relationships, the space station MIR - ends in garbage, ruin, and debris. Often, the debris lasts far longer than the original project. There is garbage orbiting the earth from 35 years ago, from a mission that lasted a day. Getting back to the present means living on top of layers of yesterday‘s throwaways, or underneath them, or between them. BACK TO THE PRESENT: How do you recycle the stuff that never decomposes, like love letters, flags, old props, old ideas? As history becomes increasingly digital, what is the difference between storage and memory? Can you use memory - with all of its faults and imprecision - to make life experiences richer, rather than poorer?BACK TO THE PRESENT lives in a sort of limbo between the layers of its own history. Like the MIR itself, like the sweet life itself, it will be leaving behind medals, uniforms and costumes, old props and programs, video recordings, broken and useless pieces of the set. Extend this further, the debris of past self destructive relationships: Torn cinema tickets, old phone numbers, love letters, cards from Valentine’s Day. All of these build the ruins that are the context and physical setting for BACK TO THE PRESENT.

A production by CONSTANZA MACRAS | DorkyPark and Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin. In co-production with sophiensæle Berlin, Lille 2004 – Kulturhauptstadt Europas and Maison des Arts de Créteil.

“What distinguishes “Back to the Present,” apart from a particularly personable, sexy cast, is the manic good humor of the entire enterprise. (...) No wonder it’s been so popular at home. And here, as well: Dance Theater Workshop was packed on Thursday, and erupted with cheers.”The New York Times, September 2006

“Dance la vie, dance” (...) These adults who have not grown out of their infancy yet, but are entangled in funny or pseudo-dramatic situa-tions, get wild on stage and bring it to life. This corresponds absolutely to Macras’ concept: she likes to show the real, the living rather than the performance, the show. Life brings up more emotions than banal imagination.”Bien Public, December 2006

Phot

o: A

urel

Thur

n

BRANCHES: THE NATURE OF CRISIS –site-specific (2012)

In the forests of north Wales. BRANCHES: THE NATURE OF CRISIS will explore the mythological and contemporary drive towards transformation through a simultaneous event in the forest and the city centre.

A production with the National Theater of Wales in partnership with the London 2012 Festival, the finale of the Cultural Olympiad.

Photo: Manuel Osterholt

UPCOMING PIECES

PIECES FOR TOURINGOPEN FOR EVERYTHING2012. Wiener Festwochen24 performers, 9 staffMinimum stage: 15m x 15m HERE/AFTER2011. Hebbel Am Ufer Berlin 5 performer, 7 staffMinimum stage: 10x15m

BERLIN ELSEWHERE 2011. Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin10 performers, 2 musicians, 8 staffMinimum stage: 20m x 15m THE OFFSIDE RULES2010. Market Theatre Johannesburg9 performers, 6 staffMinimum stage 16m x 13m

MEGALOPOLIS2010. Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin13 performers, 9 staffMinimum stage 20m x 15m

OEDIPUS REX2009. Festspielhaus Hellerau Dresden16 performers, 11 staffChoir (min. 28 persons), orchestraMinimum stage: 15m x 15m HELL ON EARTH 2008. Hebbel Am Ufer Berlin HAU111 performers, 10 kids, 9 staffMinimum stage 10m x 15m

BRICKLAND2007. Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin12 performers, 7 staffMinimum stage: 20m x 15m

I´M NOT THE ONLY ONE2006. Volksbühne im Prater BerlinPart 1: 7 Performers, 5 staffPart 2: 8 performers, 5 staff. 1 local personMinimum stage 14m x 7mNote: venue has to provide living flies.

SURE, SHALL WE TALK ABOUT IT?2005 Hebbel am Ufer. Supported by Nike14 performers, 5 staff Minimum Stage 18 x 14m

NO WONDER2005. Hebbel Am Ufer Berlin, Tanz im August4 performers, 5 staff and 8 local male extras. Minimum Stage 10 x 15m BIG IN BOMBAY2005. Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin, spielzeiteuropa - Berliner Festspiele 14 performers, 7 staffMinimum Stage 15 x 15m

BACK TO THE PRESENT 2004. Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin12 performers, 6 staff Minimum Stage 11 x 11m

UPCOMING PIECES

Photo: Constanza Macras

CONTACT

CONSTANZA MACRAS | DORKYPARK GMBHKlosterstr. 44, 10179 BerlinFon +49 30 280 424 20Fax +49 30 280 476 74www.dorkypark.orgoffice@dorkypark.org

ARTISTIC DIRECTORCONSTANZA MACRASmacras@dorkypark.org PRODUCTION MANAGEMENTKATHARINA WALLISCHproduction@dorkypark.org PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE SOPHIA ROMA WEYRINGERoffice@dorkypark.org

TOURMANAGEMENTRICARDO FRAYHA tour@dorkypark.org

ADMINISTRATION / FINANCESAMINATA OELSSNERfinances@dorkypark.org

TOURING INQUIRIESKOEN VANHOVEkoen@keyperformance.se

PERFORMERS & COLLABORATORSAlmut Lustig, Aminata Oelßner, Anna De Carlo, Ana Mondini, Alexa Gräfe, Alissa Kolbusch, Angela Schubot, Anouk Froidevaux, Arik Hayut, Assem El-Moustapha, Athena Mazarakis, Bruno Renne, Carmen Mehnert, Chiharu Shiota, Christel Friedrich, Claus Erbskorn, Claudia Catarzi, Christian Buck, Constanze Hoffmann, Damir Zisko, Denis Kuhnert, Diane Busutti, Dikeledi Modubu, Di-onisos Tsantinis, Domenick Mashishi, Elik Niv, Fatma El-Moustapha, Fernanda Farah, Florencia Lamarca, Franz Rogowski, Fritz Feilhaber, Gail Sharrol Skrela, Gilvan Coéhlo de Oliveira, Hansel Nezza, Hilde Elbers, Hiltrud Ellert, Hiromi Iwasa, Hyoung-Min Kim, Hyun-Jung Wang, Ingeborg Ide, Janina Schmidt, Jared Gardinger, Jill Emerson, Joanne Stone, Johanna Lemke, John Sithole, Jonas Kilian, Jonathan Trinh-Bomme, Joris Camelin, Jörg Bittner, Josephine Reinisch, Julia Weis, Juliette Collas, Kai Ingo Rudolph, Katharina Wallisch, Kevin Slavin, Kristina Lösche-Löwensen, Lebang Monnahela, Lial Akouch, Lisa Boeffgen, Lisa Rennebaum, Lisi Estaras, Lulu Akouch, Mahmoud Zayab, Manuel Osterholt, Magdalena Emmerig, Maike Möller, Maradona Akouch, Margaretha Barck, Maria Onis, Max Luz, Max Renne, Miki Shoji, Mmakgozi Kgabi, Muhammed El-Moustapha, Nabih Amaraoui, Nadine Hutton, Nicolas Vladyslav, Nikeata Thompson, Noel Ndinisa, Ntombifuthi Sengwayo, Tal Drieschner-Shacham, Tamara Saphir, Toby Cornish, Tomoko Fujimura, Tonatiuh Diaz, Rahel Savoldelli, Ricardo Frayha, Ronni Maciel, Sabine Neumann, Santiago Blaum, Sergio Pessanha, Sophia Roma Weyringer, Stephan Wöhrmann, Stéphane Lalloz, Tatiana Eva Saphir, Toby Götz, Tomasz Wija, Ulf Pankoke, Welko Dimitrov, Yeri Anarika Varges Sanchéz, ...

SUPPORTED BY

GRAPHIC DESIGN by STUDIO SUPERBLAST

TOUR DATES

MEMORY IS FRAGILEGARBAGE LASTS FOREVER

WWW.DORKYPARK.ORG