Lethe

2023

Live Environment
Premiere: Nov 9-12 2023 |
@Tanzfabrik Berlin

Between tenderness and eternity, transience and permanence, being there and being away, dimensions of human and geological existence are stretched out along the Tagliamento. One feels suspended and exposed at the same time. The unregulated nature of the river is transferred as a mood to one's own feeling: a letting go, a giving up of control, a surrendering to the landscape.

Lethe brings together landscape, performance and mythology. The protagonist is the Tagliamento in northern Italy, one of the last wild, unregulated rivers in Europe. Sandra Man connects it with the mythological Lethe, the river of oblivion in the realm of the dead.

The Tagliamento is a large river, it flows from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. Its riverbed is not straightened, the amount of water depends on rain and snowmelt. Wide gravel areas, overgrown islands and riparian forests form a biotope unique in Europe. Today the Tagliamento is threatened - by traffic, industry and global warming.

Working on site with the dancer Laura Siegmund, the musician Judith Hamann and the performer Lisa Densem, a unique ecosystem gives birth to a live environment of performance, spoken words, image and sound.

The large stone field is crisscrossed by several watercourses of different sizes; in between there are islands, sandbanks, plants growing on them; occasionally large dark tree trunks lie in the bed, washed-up dead wood. One is always alone there, the river is not a transport route and not frequented by tourists.

The atmosphere is unique: the vastness suggests abandonment and loneliness; the mountains surround the riverbed, enclosing it and giving a sense of security; the young plants that grow in the river again and again and are flooded again convey fragility and at the same time perseverance and resilience.

The project consists of a live performance by Lisa Densem and a video performance produced on site at the Tagliamento with the dancer Laura Siegmund and the musician/composer Judith Hamann. The live performance is a choreography of movement and speech, based on the figure of the rhapsodist, a kind of messenger in ancient pre-theatrical spoken words history.

In the video performance the sound of the composer Judith Hamann, based on field recordings, and the dance of the performer Laura Siegmund, filmed on location, come together.

Concept, Installation, Video, Text: Sandra Man
Choreography and Performance: Lisa Densem, Laura Siegmund
Music: Judith Hamann
Artistic Collaboration: Moritz Majce
Dramaturgical Company: Heike Albrecht, Felicitas Zeeden
Translation: Anna Galt
Production Management: Tiphaine Carrère
Technical Direction: Marc Lagies

A Production by Sandra Man.
Co-produced by Tanzfabrik Berlin.

Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.