SURVIVAL

Can we overcome our physical and mental inadequacies by collecting and analysing more and more digital data? Would we find fulfilment in death if we mastered it virtually? And would the internet then be the key to eternal love?

The multimedia performance THE SINGING HEAD – SURVIVAL, which combines music, drama and media art, seeks answers to these questions in motifs from Ovid’s story of Orpheus and Euridice and the Chinese opera “The Peony Pavilion”.

A video projection distributed on 32 interactive LED panels makes the boundaries between reality and virtuality, between this world and the next disappear on stage. In the composition, the ensemble of the Marc Sinan Company enters into a multimedia dialogue on site with recordings of traditional Chinese instruments and explores new possibilities of communication beyond familiar social hierarchies under the constraints of an algorithmic beat.

Outside of the performance, SURVIVAL can also be experienced as an installation: On a spiral path, the visitors are drawn sonically and visually into the fictitious underworld and confronted with the question of the possibilities of life and survival. Position and movement determine the perception of the narrative of the one-hour composition, which combines traditional music from Asia and Europe in a new way. The sounds and voices of the musicians from China and Europe, a countertenor and a performer control the video production, which is distributed across 32 interactive LED panels. The result is a 360-degree world of sound and images of hypnotic intensity.