Angels - Cie_avec

Angels
Multidisciplinary show for one actor, poetry, soundtrack, video and light
Daïkokucho Productions
Los Angeles James Sandoval [email protected]
Geneva Cosima Weiter [email protected]
www.avec-productions.com
Angels
Production file
Distribution p. 3
Rationalep. 5
Work processp. 7
Immigration
Power architecture: the family house
p. 8
A city - image
Los Angeles: a future multicultural megalopolis?
p. 9
Artistic internship: work schedulep.11
Interviews
Playwriting for the show
Integration testing for footage under different scenographic assumptions
Shooting the footage
Playwritingp.12
Sound recordings and processing options
Scenography creation and final plan
Angels, multidisciplinary creationp.14
Synopsis
Multifaceted language
Actors’ appearance, staging
Playwriting
p.15
Soundtrack
Sound staging
Shots and video broadcasting
Scenographyp.16
The Compagnie_Avecp.18
Biographiesp.19
Press clippingsp.21
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Angels
Multidisciplinary creation
Design and staging Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter
Text and staging Cosima Weiter
Actor Pierre Isaïe Duc
Music Blaine Reininger (Tuxedomoon)
Sound staging Philippe de Rham
Video creation Alexandre Simon
Video assistant James Sandoval
Lighting Julien Talpain
Scenography Cie_Avec
Administration and distribution Daïkokucho Productions
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(...) a radical structural analysis of the city can only acquire social force if it is embodied in an alternative
experiential vision - in this case, of the huge Los Angeles Third World whose children will be the Los Angeles
of the next millennium. In this emerging, poly-ethnic and poly-lingual society - with Anglos a declining minority
- the structural conditions of intervention in popular culture are constantly in flux.
Mike Davis in City of Quartz, Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
Rationale
Our previous work trip through the United States revealed that its white community is gradually becoming a
minority. Indeed, white population presents a relatively low birth rate compared to other communities. Then
again our trip made us feel us like stopping at a specific spot and staying there for a while, taking in the
atmosphere and grasping much more than passers-by do.
Los Angeles is precisely the quintessential immigration city. For Americans, it represents the end of the road and
where the famous Highway 66 stops. A city shrouded in such a powerful myth that people come there to make
their dreams come true. Indeed, films directed and produced on site are shared worldwide through Hollywood
films, television series and novels, including thrillers. This led us to make these people who immigrate to Los
Angeles our subject while engaging with the city’s diverse communities. On this basis, we could discuss the
City of Angels and thus decipher the signs that contain the seeds of its future.
Therefore, we wish to address the future of the American dream as immigrants face the harsh reality of the
metropolis. What living solutions can they rely upon in this new world? What influence do they have on the city
today? How will they build the Los Angeles of tomorrow?
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Work process
As for Funkhaus, Marzahn and Highway, our previous shows, our work begins with documentary research,
and an immersion in the city’s culture, as well as various assumptions to be reality-checked during our artistic
internship in Los Angeles. We will identify suitable locations in the area and conduct interviews with members
of different communities while shooting our footage. Using these elements, we should be able to challenge our
staging approach to ensure its consistency with our findings.
Immigration
To discuss Los Angeles and its future, we must consider the communities shaping the city, not only because
LA is one of the points towards which migrants worldwide converge nowadays, but also because, from an
historical standpoint, it remains the sole American metropolis founded by settlers from various sources,
including Mexican, Native American, European, and people of African origin. Thus, this rich cultural mix has
governed the city at its very foundation.
Today’s migrants often come from Mexico, Central America and Latin America. They are so numerous that the
city is gradually turning into a huge Hispanic community. Regardless, the population is infinitely more diverse
than one might imagine. Indeed, a Chinese community settled down at the end of the nineteenth century and
the Japanese neighborhood Little Tokyo saw its founding in 1910. The Asian-American community of Los
Angeles also includes Koreans and Filipinos. Since World War II, the immigrant flow from Korea, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Pacific Islands, South East Asia, Thailand, Cambodia, Samoa and Vietnam nurtured numerous Asian
enclaves in various parts of Los Angeles. To these, we should add migrants from Asia, Israelis, Armenians,
Iranians, Russians and nationals of the former Eastern bloc. Thanks to these different migration waves, Los
Angeles now hosts a greater ethnic diversity than New York.
The rationale for this steady migratory flow to Los Angeles is indeed multi-faceted. Some come from far away,
fleeing a totalitarian regime, violence or poverty in their countries of origin. Some migrate to work in the sex
or pornography industry. There are also immigrants from interior US states, running away from their families,
lack of prospects and one-horse towns. Many come as students. There are those who come to play music, and
those who come to approach movie studios, and blend in with a white and wealthy population: Los Angeles, or
their own perception thereof. Finally, there are those who come just for the waves of the Pacific Ocean. In fact,
recent migrants often fill - whether legally or not - unskilled jobs.
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Power architecture: the family house
We chose to analyze the family house as an expression of the economic power architecture and flagship real
estate product. Indeed, from the late nineteenth century, Angelinos chose the family house with garden as the
preferred residential solution because Anglo-Saxon Protestant people, driven by a “pastoral” ideal, yearned
to maintain proximity to natural areas and focus their social life on the family unit, conferring it an important
domestic space. This initial choice influenced the city’s layout and led to a sense of unlimited growth of the
greater city. Developers quickly understood that they could market the open air, sun and dry heat of Los
Angeles by dividing it into small plots and heavily advertising its qualities in less temperate regions of the
country. As newcomers came, they were aggressively encouraged to buy land.
As it happens, this way of living proved extremely expensive in terms of space and often involved the use
of individual means of transportation: the automobile. But L.A. has grown exponentially and urban transport
has become a permanent headache as shown by the ever-clogged LA highways. From these observations, it
follows that social relations do not arise from street or outdoors interaction - streets are mere traffic lanes at
best - but flourish between the walls of family houses for the most part. The resulting scarcity of public spaces
leads in turn to social exclusion and the retreat and isolation of numerous ethnic communities.
Thus, we note the crucial influence that favoring family houses had on the lifestyle of the inhabitants. It is
precisely for this reason that we plan to shoot in family houses, which are at once the seat of the privacy for the
people we will meet, and the premise on which all other Angelinos’ life choices rest.
A city - image
As Michael Sorkin has emphasized. “L.A. is probably the most mediated town in America, nearly unviewable
save through the fictive scrim of its mythlogizers”.
Mike Davis in City of Quartz, Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
The myth of Los Angeles has become global, propelled by the unparalleled media deployment operated by the
“image makers”. According to Mike Davis, this cultural lobby aims to better position the city by advertising to
foreign investors and the wealthiest potential emigrants. This is why the idealized portrait of the City of Angels
is so important. Historically, Los Angeles’s culture has aimed to create an image of the city through its artistic
creators. LA is thus the city of Hollywood studios. Its inhabitants are predominantly white and wealthy. Its higher
education institutions are among the most prestigious in the world. Its mild climate and the ocean nearby make
life particularly enticing. This paradise-like portrait is undoubtedly driven by the will to arouse desire, and the
fact that it appears as the city where anything can happen. The continuous migratory inflow is evidence enough
in that respect. The city’s attractiveness is so strong that even the less positive aspects of Angeline life, such
as gang violence, are construed as myths and fed into this fantasy scene.
Thus, we intend to challenge this somewhat artificial image of Los Angeles, face the media distortion field and
build our own image of LA.
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Los Angeles: a future multicultural megalopolis?
This may be well be because Los Angeles is a city of immigrants, a city that fills every day with newcomers and
where the past is soon gone and forgotten. For many, indeed, the past lies beyond the ocean, far to the south
or inland to the east. Their motto: “We come here to build a brighter future for ourselves.” One day, however, the
future of all those moving to LA will directly shape the city’s prospects. The face of Los Angeles will be hence a
multicultural one. That being said, we cannot foresee whether the diversity of cultures living in Los Angeles will
be a source of conflict or the engine of a multiethnic culture.
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Angels
artistic internship
Directors Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter
Footage staging Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter
Text Cosima Weiter
Shooting of footage for stage projection
Staging Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter
Casting, Production assistant, Sound recordist, James Sandoval
Administration and distribution Daïkokucho Productions
Interviews
Questions will focus on the image that these persons had of Los Angeles before arrival, the reasons for leaving
their place of birth and their daily life today. How do they regard the development of their communities and what
type of interaction between them will this produce?
These interviews will be recorded and filmed. During these initial meetings, we will identify suitable locations
for shooting.
Playwriting for the show
We will write the script based on a deeper understanding of our subject and better outlined characters. This
scenario will determine the meaning and interplay of various elements including text, staging for the set and
footage, scenography and projection space, music and lighting.
Integration testing for footage under different scenographic assumptions
Before shooting, we will project the selected locations on a set model. In particular, this will allow making
framing decisions for the planned shots.
Shooting the footage
Once the storyboard of the footage has been drawn and the technical shooting solutions chosen, we will return
to the interviewees in order to shoot scenes of daily tasks staged in real settings.
Meanwhile, we will shoot travellings of the road leading to each of the characters’ homes, and a very long shot
of the sunrise.
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Playwriting
Based on the show set and the interviews, Cosima Weiter will write the monologues which will be played by
Pierre Isaïe Duc
Sound recordings and processing options
Cosima Weiter and Alexandre Simon will record sounds produced by the city, especially from traffic, ACs
and ocean waves. Afterwards, Blaine Reininger will add multiple effects to make them increasingly abstract,
creating an atmospheric score to make the city’s presence felt in a subliminal yet permanent way.
Scenography creation and final plan
After examining LA’s residential architecture and the city’s landscape, we will merge and consolidate these
spaces to further refine our staging approach. We will make the final choice of materials and define decor
manufacturing plans.
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Angels
multidisciplinary creation
The real importance of Los Angeles to the outside world arises from two facts underlying the city’s existence:
firstly, the most significant films and television shows in the western world come from Los Angeles; secondly,
these productions are made in Los Angeles, using the city as a natural set, through and with those living there,
and these major cultural totems eventually show that the paradigm of human life is Los Angeles’s way of life.
Benjamin J. Stein translated from Une gigantesque photocopieuse, Los Angeles,
Le guide Autrement édition 1999-2000
Synopsis
Shots will succeed presenting banal yet iconic characters of Los Angeles.
The actor on the set plays their monologues facing the audience and taking the place of the people filmed.
They will elaborate on the approaches they rely upon to survive or thrive in this new world. By its nature, the
monologue itself will convey the solitude of each speaker. The characters will first attempt to embellish things
before presenting the harsh reality.
The show will be punctuated by visions, disrupting images without words whereby the characters connect,
approach, and touch each other to be really together.
The show will end with a projection of their future in the megalopolis.
Multifaceted language
We will favor the language of performing arts and the cinema, an obvious choice in our view if we are to
address Los Angeles. Language will operate an extra set dimension, a way to add a space and time to the here
and now of the theater. It will also play with the ambiguity between documentary and fiction. This script will
allow us to convey the attractiveness of Los Angeles.
Actor’s appearance, staging
Actors do not embody the characters appearing on the screen but lend them their voices. Movements will be
driven by a symbolic logic designed to progressively take them to the forefront. The show will be punctuated by
breaks during which the actor abandons his solitude.
We will amplify the actor’s voice to preserve the privacy of his tone.
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Playwriting - Cosima Weiter
Playwriting will commence as the set is being built. It will be based on the experiences we live in Los Angeles
and our observations, as well as on interviews with immigrants from diverse origins and backgrounds. It will
essentially consist of monologues, which will intersect and echo each other. Interactions will be scarce and
usually connected to trade. They will show a self-centered and voluntarily poor nature, perpetuating each one’s
loneliness.
The text will use the present tense, future tense, present subjunctive and conditional thus freeing itself from
the grip of the past.
Soundtrack and live music - Blaine Reininger (Tuxedomoon)
Blaine Reininger will compose an abstract soundtrack from the sounds of cars and air conditioners. This muffled
soundtrack will accompany the entire show as the noise and pollution that inevitably come with Los Angeles.
Moreover, he will produce some classical pieces for strings. These melodic, instrumental passages will appear
as contrasting breaks throughout the show, flights of lyricism carrying sensuality and joy whereby the cast
expresses its desires and dreams.
For certain breaks, Blaine Reininger will work on sound ideas to trigger mental images in the spectators while
the scene remains in darkness.
Shots and video broadcasting - Alexandre Simon
Shots will take several forms:
- Fixed shots with interviewees at home.
- Fixed shots of architectural details of the various houses.
- Dolly shots from a car on the road leading us to the interviewees, covering the commuting options available
in the city.
- Camera crane shots, close-up shots, or even footage from video surveillance cameras, ocean waves, road
tar, yards, and vacant lots that will be screened on the set during the breaks to convey a feeling of unstable
ground thanks to the live movement generated by module 8.
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Scenography - Cie_Avec
On the back of the stage, we will place a screen showing a fixed shot of sunrise unfolding throughout the show.
Two white, vertical sliding panels, taking up the entire width of the set, will be used as projection space. Panels
open at two thirds of the playing space width. Once opened, they operate as a door through which actor
accesses the front of the stage, and reveal the sequence projected at the back.
The stage will be covered with a black dance floor. On the floor, two light lines emerge at a right angle to the
end of each panel. Between these light lines, an area covered with a liquid-soil coating momentarily traces the
actor’s movements.
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The _Avec Cie
After Funkhaus in 2009, Marzahn and Highway in 2012, Angels is the fourth show to be put on by the _Avec
company, founded in 2009 by Alexandre Simon and Cosima Weiter. Together they have developed a creative
process that is founded on a submersion into a geographic and cultural territory. Simultaneously, the text is
partially made up of interviews, video images, and the scenography.
The relationship between architecture and power, and traces from the past that are perceived by attentively
observing the present are the main interest here.
You will find all the information pertaining to the company’s activities on the web site:
www.avec-productions.com
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Biographies
Alexandre Simon - Video creation
Video maker, Alexandre Simon was born in Geneva, 1963. His experience with multidisciplinary performance
started in 1986 with the group Ka, which continued up to 1992. They made 5 shows together. In 1993, he
concentrated on creating sets for video projections on stage for danse, music, and theater. He has colaborated
with Fabienne Abramovich, Carlo Brandt, Gabriel Scotti, Barbara Nicolier, Orélie Fuchs, Maya Boesch, Noemi
Lapzeson, The Young Gods.
As a video artist he makes installations, films, and video mixes in collaboration with Marcello Silvio Busato,
Gabriel Scotti, Vincent Haenni, Jacques Demierre, Gérard Burger, A.L.S.O. melodie and the authors Françoise
Ascal and Cosima Weiter. His work has been shown in Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, South America,
and Japan, in institutional theaters such as the Théâtre de la Colline à Paris, the Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre
Vidy Lausanne, the Comédie de Genève. as well as alternative theaters such as the Galpon, the Cave 12 in
Geneva, the Lichtblick Kino in Berlin, the Superdeluxe in Tokyo. Since 2009 he has been working on shows
with other artists: Blanc with Jacques Demierre and Isabelle Duthoit, Funkhaus, Marzahn and Highway with
Cosima Weiter.
Cosima Weiter - Sound Poetry
Sound Poet, Cosima Weiter was born in Lyon, 1973. She specialized in literature studies, and continued her
education at l’ENM in Villeurbanne studying electroacoustic composition with Bernard Fort. Simultaneously
she worked on her sound poetry mixing recordings and live voice on stage. She writes in French and German,
and has invented a language in between the two. She often does the readings of her sound poetry in France,
Switzerland, Germany, and Luxembourg in such places as the Instants chavirés in Montreuil, the Palais de
Tokyo in Paris, at the Villa Gillet and Subsistances in Lyon, at the Cave 12 in Geneva et the French Institute in
Berlin. Since 2009, she has been writing pieces and stages them with Alexandre Simon. She recently cosigned
Funkhaus, Marzahn and Highway.
Blaine Reininger – Sound track and music
Blaine L. Reininger born in 1953 in Pueblo, Colorado, United States is an American post-punk, new-wave and
alternative pop singer, songwriter, writer, performer, musician and multi-instrumentalist. He plays particularly
violin. He is known for being a member of the group Tuxedomoon since 1977 after co-founding it with Steven
Brown and, latterly, for a notable music and theatre career, both as a soloist and contributor to other artist’s
recordings, including Durutti Column, Snakefinger, Anna Domino, Savage Republic, Paul Haig, William Lee
Self’s Montanablue project and Devine & Statton. Blaine also continues his long-standing duo work with Steven
Brown, a diverse catalogue which includes soundtracks as well as superlative piano/violin recitals typified by
the CD Live in Lisbon. Currently Reininger resides in Athens, and pursues parallel careers as a solo artist, actor
and Tuxedomoon member.
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Press clippings
Highway
The long journey of Alexandre and Cosima
... seldom has a show so aptly conveyed the power of the great American outdoors, this idea that random,
unplanned movement can uncover pivotal truths. Highway, a work of uncommon homogeneity by Alexandre
Simon - images, Cosima Weiter - text, and Franz Treichler -soundtrack...
... Highway invites the public to an immersive experience where play, images and music move forward in
perfect harmony.
Initially, Cosima Weiter and Alexandre Simon, Genevan artists who lived in Berlin, set out - with their little girl
but without a car - on a quest to discover this huge country, which seems to die and start anew every day.
They recreate their wondrous quest through a poetic proposal where an actor, Pierre-Félix Gravière, describes
various US scenarios on a background of frozen pictures - of buildings, vast plains - and ad hoc clips. Armed
with a guitar and a computer, Franz Treichler develops this aesthetic shock approach by mixing melancholic
hues with overtly aggressive electrical or electronic scores.
Pierre-Félix Gravière regularly collaborates with Alain Françon, a French director who favors dance over trance.
This trait unmistakably shows through his solid yet soft stance, his hasteless questioning, which goes well with
the stupor induced by never-ending roads. Initially, the actor is lying on a carpet of golden aluminum blankets.
It utters fragments of sentences, sometimes just words, “I am the only son”, “I am the fifth of eight.” Behind him,
on a titled screen, a road goes by. All the sudden, the picture freezes on three buildings fronts which eventually
merge into an abstract pattern.
This time, standing at the microphone, the actor’s speech becomes clearer. Snippets of sentences become
portraits of pseudo-average American characters. “I prepare cheeseburgers at Spider Grill.” A basketball star
and the director of Nature Conservancy follow. One seems to recognize the characters of Freedom, the last
story on American baby-boomers’ by the gifted Jonathan Franzen. Cosima Weiter confirmed. Indeed, she read
it and drew a few ideas for this road-poem.
Later on, before the picture of a run-down factory, probably abandoned, Pierre-Félix Gravière recollects. It is all
about pushing the boundaries, building guns, going to war. The theme is chanted but devoid of any ostentation,
as if facing an unavoidable fatality. Next, there is sequence where a citizen, down on his luck, leaves his family
behind. On the screen, you see a desolate town while the actor delivers a poignant speech: “I am leaving, I
will be a farmer, gold prospector, or buffalo runner”. In the midst of it all, the frenzy of this future of freedom is
illustrated by a devilish highway interchange, as those nurturing Los Angeles with newcomers.
Simon Alexandre and Cosima Weiter are not stuck in today’s America anyway. They travel back to its origins.
On an organic background - a night vision camera searching the bushes - the actor describes the rise and fall
of the worlds as a seamless whole. Cosmogony, eschatology, and always this idea of ends butting, crashing
against each other. However, no violence erupts on stage, rather, the opposite is true. All is revealed and lived
sparingly, with a keen sense of poetic moment. The one which swallowed the monster whole and turned it into
a near-mythological creature.
Le Temps, 25 September 2012, Marie-Pierre Genecand
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Le Temps, 25 September 2012,
Marie-Pierre Genecand
Le Temps, 25 September 2012, Marie-Pierre Genecand
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Choral for eye, ear and tongue
The press release reports that Highway, the third work of Compagnie_Avec, by adopting the point of view of
a bougillon named Kearney, retraces US history back to their original guilt vis-à-vis the American Indians. The
video images mixed by Alexandre Simon, breathing sounds and pulses served by Franz Treichler, and the text
written by Cosima Weiter, drawing inspiration from Ginsberg, Dylan or Harrison, compose an impressionist
portrait of the mythological continent. In any case, Highway is much more than that. This show of barely
an hour delivers a raw, rare and intact sensory experience. Multidisciplinarity makes it an extraordinary and
bright exercise The intersection of the tire walls erected in the yard and garden, the iridescent film covering
the stage, and the tilted, semi-transparent screen at the back marks the ideal coalescence of sound, image
and script. The solo-voice of the actor, a superconductor Pierre-Félix Gravière, blends in so seamlessly with
Treichler’s guitar (staging by Bertrand Siffert) that notes seem to convey the meaning of words and chords
that of syllables. Music, in turn, seems to generate dollies and light spots by itself, which soon exude their own
harmonics. Lastly, images, which never repeat the text, magically materialize the freely associated strata. In
the end, the road infuses its truth: “You can always go further...”.
Tribune de Genève, 22 September 2012, Katia Berger
Marzahn
Marzahn, the other face of Berlin
Marzahn, terminal! Marzahn is a neighborhood in the former East Berlin, a city built in the late 1970s to the glory
of triumphant communism. Here, where the unemployment rate is 40% of the population, the effervescence of
the German capital is but a distant rumble.
Sound poet Cosima Weiter and filmmaker Alexandre Simon, artistic interns of ABC cultural center at La Chauxde-Fonds, began to question in text and images the architectural heritage of this city, brutally scarred by
totalitarian regimes.
Specializing in the creation of image projection devices for dance, music, and theater, Alexandre Simon designs
his own performances since 2009. He lives between Geneva and Berlin.
For her part, Cosima Weiter explores the world of sound poetry. A native of Lyon of Berliner adoption, she kneads
and pummels the words into an inventive paste, punctuating the French language with her own German slang.
They are accompanied by Marc Gaillard, responsible for lighting. Pierre-Félix Gravière, regularly appearing in
plays by Robert Cantarella, Joel Jouanneau, Alain Françon and more recently in the feature film “The Monk”
by Dominik Moll, leads this performance combining acting and video projections. A first version of this work will
be presented tonight at the ABC.
Throughout the week, residents worked on the raw material brought from Berlin by Simon Alexandre and
Cosima Weiter.
Both artists have surveyed the Marzahn neighborhood for months, photographing huge apartment buildings
and small shops in utter decay. They watched the children on the trampoline and listened to punk girls playing
music. In the cemetery, they unsuccessfully sought the traces of the camp where Roma families gathered
before their deportation to Auschwitz.
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While Cosima Weiter and Alexandre Simon managed to speak with the neighborhood designers, their attempts
to engage with the locals were met with the silence of some and the hostile indifference of others. It is precisely
this pervasive uneasiness which serves to frame the work reported daily in a journal available on their website
www.avec-productions.com.
Immersion between poetry and ethnology in a Kafkaesque universe, removed, worlds apart from the trendy
Berlin we’ve come to known, the temple of techno, clubbing and of the so-called “underground” culture.
A thousand miles from the futuristic buildings of Adlershof, Posdamerplatz and other landmarks of the former
GDR, where the weight of the past has been erased in a joyous explosion of all-daring architecture.
L’Express - L’impartial, 20 August 2011, Catherine Favre
Funkhaus
An eclectic chamber opera revived at the Théâtre de l’Usine a symbol of the former East Germany.
Experimental. The program of Funkhaus, a creation of Simon Alexandre and Cosima Weiter, on at the Théâtre
de l’Usine until 22 November, stated exhaustively: “Chamber opera for video, sound poetry and percussion.”
Now, what do these seemingly apart genera have in common? The answer lies in the title itself. Indeed,
Funkhaus Nalepastrasse, home to the former East Germany radio and showcase of the State’s media power,
is the true scope of this work. Today, only the ghostly walls of this small town of 135,000 m2 remain in place.
Fortunately, both show creators (joined en route by the musician Marcello Silvio Busato) do not share that fate:
they build their work on the remnants of Funkhaus Nalepastrasse’s daily paper. Thus, the Funkhaus becomes
the symbol of a story without witnesses, which was written by researching material on site. The chamber opera,
as its name suggests, is a minor opera genre. Taking into account its qualities as a minor genre, Funkhaus
further reduced its seductive elements. Fake concrete panels stand on stage and, as the performance starts,
Alexandre Simon projects onto them a decoration of hallways and empty rooms. A voice says: “My steps in my
footsteps, I advance in these corridors of the past.” A voice, because Cosima Weiter’s body vanishes among
the projected, black and gray decorations. Marcello Silvio Busato, his back to the audience, hands on the wall,
makes sounds and starts a duet. Cosima Weiter’s face shortly emerges and retreats, accurately following an
invisible path in a maze we can only guess. Cosima Weiter’s speech transfers to this wall. A jerky speech,
made or disturbances caused by severed coils or noisy radio frequencies. Not surprisingly. Indeed, these
are the remnants of programs, information, interviews collected by the artist and sound poet from Funkhaus’
files and accumulated as lists. Through this syntax, as fragmented as memory, we can guess a storyline. The
evocation of a gagged newspaper, of someone in charge of weeding out the real, troubling stories through
the former GDR’s censorship. “I cut the tape”, “my words do not mean anything”, “it is not the truth I am after.”
Souvenir photos are projected. A face covers Cosima Weiter’s. As the voice resurfaces, the “I” becomes plural,
identifying the people of the former GDR, uprooted and fooled by history. Even if the “I” identifies with all these
ill-fated souls for a moment, we are still a far cry from the “ostalgie” and other soothing readings of the past. At
that point, the pace becomes steadier. The musician returns to his wall and hits, scratches, makes squealing
sounds and “plays” it. A range of unexpected sounds, performed by Claire Davy (scenographer) and Marcello
Silvio Busato. Funkhaus is a work of meaningful and ingenious discoveries.
Le Courrier, 19 November 2009, Nicola de Marchi
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“Am I more by myself with the door open or closed?” Since the fall of the Wall, Cosima Weiter lives in Berlin
with Genevan videographer Alexandre Simon. Sense of belonging, propaganda, freedom, loss of identity... All
these topics subtly permeate Funkhaus, a chamber opera for voice, images and percussion that evokes, in an
impressionist manner, the Funkhaus Nalepastrasse, the Radio house of the former GDR and authentic political
and cultural helmsman, which was abandoned after reunification. On stage, four walls showing images of
damaged walls, cracked doors and dark corridors. The Funkhaus, or the remnants thereof. Without transition,
snapshots of chubby children of the 1960s, pampered by an attentive mother, raised by a strict father. The
symbol seems obvious. One day, a long time ago, the former GDR believed in a bright future. Throughout
those golden years, the Radio house spread this idea of ​​progress. At the forefront, Cosima Weiter says her own
words. Words that skim such historical turnaround without documenting it. It is about the “storm on the sea”, the
“Road to the Future”. Further, the author adds: “Better watch your words, the enemy is not far away.” And then:
“A wall as nothing and its shadow to live on. This is more like it. “ She is not alone on the stage. With this back to
the audience, the percussionist Marcello Silvio Busato hits the musical wall with his sticks. Banging, scratching,
breaking, caressing sounds. A gentle voice, says: “My country moves to the West, my country wanes.” On one
of the walls, an old-time child smiles.
Le Temps, 21 November 2009, Marie-Pierre Genecand
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