projects

ZauberEi

Dance performance between comic and myth for people age/d 6+

With 5 dancers and video animation

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MagicEgg
A poetic dancetheatre between comic and myth.
The little orange planet doesn’t feel quite well. He is coughing and has for some time high fever. Its varicolored inhabitants simply don’t know what to do. Worried and anxious they call the chicken. Out of its magic egg the world was created once. But the chicken turns away only bored and falls into a deep depression. In a hurry magicians and shamans of different parts of the world are convoked to show their mastery with the only objective to inspire the desperate cosmic chicken with great and wild dances to lay an egg. A wonderful competition starts….
MagicEgg is a dancetheatre piece for young and older audience with 5 excellent dancers coming from different parts of the world, imaginative costumes and funny cartoon-like animations of french artist Timothée Ingen-Housz. In this piece choreographer Stephanie Thiersch links serious thoughts about the state of our nature with the humourous ado of unorthodox worldresidents and a lot of poetry.

cast:

dance/creation: Viviana Escalé (Spain), Mu-Yi Kuo (Taiwan), Vincent Bozek (France), Kepha Oiro (Kenya), Nicolas Robillard (France); narratress: Evelyn Tzortzakis
direction/choreography: Stephanie Thiersch; idea/drawings/animation: Timothée Ingen-Housz /F; music: Harald “Sack” Ziegler Sack&Blumm; dramaturgy: Xenia Bühler; costumes: Sabine Schneider; chor. assistent: Viviana Escalé; technical direction/light design: Ansgar Kluge; trainee: Romy Schwarzer; production management: Lieve De Scheerder; PR/marketing: Jessica Otten

credits:

Funded by Kulturamt der Stadt Köln, Ministerium des Landes NRW, Rheinenergie-Stiftung und Fonds Darstellende Künste.

MagicEgg is a MOUVOIR production in cooperation with freihandelszone-ensemblenetzwerk Köln, Comedia, Cologne and coproduced by tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf, in the frame of Take Off Festival supported by Tanzplan Germany, an initiative of the National Cultural Foundation and the City of Düsseldorf, the Ministry of NRW and the Art Foundation of NRW. Supported by Godown Art Center Nairobi and by the artist residence program of the Goethe Insitut, ITI Germany and a GreenTeam of Greenpeace.

press:
_The production dances audaciously on a knife's edge: portraying something that is too poor for the critical hen, but certainly of interest to the audience. That they have taken risks with their dramatisation is clearly apparent. But the consistent avoidance of cheap show effects and the creation of undetermined space makes “ZauberEi” a masterful production – including Harald Ziegler's amiable music, the enchanting animated film by Timothée Ingen-Housz, Sabine Schneider's costumes and the magnificent dancers. _
(Rheinische Post, 15.12.2009 – Melanie Suchy)

_The experienced Cologne-based choreographer is staging a dance theatre for children aged 6 and above at the Tanzhaus NRW in Düsseldorf, comprising five noteworthy dancers, amiable music with a variety of rhythmic and instrumental tones by Harald Sack Ziegler, along with costumes created by Sabine Schneider and a wonderful animated film running in the background. The plot revolves around an attempt to save a small, ailing, dirty planet. Its creator, the giant hen, lays a new magical egg, but not before it needs to be persuaded to do so by the enchanted dancing of the planet's inhabitants. Thiersch consciously avoids the use of clichés, exaggeration and slapstick. _
(www.kultiversum.de, 15.12.2009 – Melanie Suchy)

_The story may not have a logical ending, but it is a good one, complete with a rousing finale, with all the colours dancing with each other.
In doing so, the choreography avoids projecting a blatantly corny image. Children get to watch out whether every colour is represented.
The animations and music create warm yet roughened aesthetics which, when coupled with dance and narration, ensure plenty of appeal. The audience is called upon to process and relate the elements to one another. The 50-60 minutes of the performance are filled to bursting. _(WDR5 Scala, 14.12.2009 – Christiane Enkeler)

_Dance enjoys little recognition in German society. This is one of the reasons why she [Stephanie Thiersch] has become actively involved in school projects, even though she otherwise teaches avantgarde at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen. Captivating young adults “is done through content and music”. Pupils, usually MTV viewers, are amazingly quick at realising that contemporary dance offers greater scope for expression than hip-hop.
[Thiersch's] experiences are the result of reactions that come from her harshest critic, her six-year-old son, who often watches her performances. Through him, she has come to realise that children develop their own way of interpreting theatre. This is why “ZauberEi” works on two levels. The choreographer seeks to communicate to children that they are free to think what they want [as opposed to a didactical superstructure, editor’s note]. And she encourages them to dance. The demands children place on dance language is as high as ever. But “the form of narration should be simpler,” says Stephanie Thiersch. Where adults would recognise parody, children will interpret it very literally._ (Ballett-tanz, January 2010 – Bettina Trouwborst)

trailer ZauberEi, production also available in english.

ZauberEi