• 1
• 2

• Performance + Artist Talk
• Monster
• Freakshow
• Colonialism

• Sa., 06.01.2018, 20:00

Artist talk following 'Monstrator'

A stage work on monsters, freak shows, human zoos, colonial exhibitions and other wonders and aberrations such as human beings. Helena Butto aims to critically question the theatrical apparatus of the Freak shows. The audience is invited to discuss the idea of monstrosity with the artists after the performance.

• 1Foto © Philipp Weinrich
• 2 Mathieu Pelletier, Schauspieler

Helena Botto, Marc Philipp Gabriel, Joshua Rutter explore the idea of monstrosity. What are the contemporary processes of monstrification? What are the contemporary versions of freak shows? How do the artists try to rethink the mechanisms that create otherness? The audience is invited to share their thoughts and to discuss with the artists.

About the venue

ACUD Theatre

The ACUD Theatre in Berlin's Mitte district has been a place for young, innovative and diverse theatre since 1990, building bridges between acting, dance, performing art, clowning and puppetry. As an independent theatre, it supports national and international theatre pieces by young groups and solo artists. Each year around 120 performances take place in the 70-seat theatre, around 90% of them new productions, Berlin premieres or world premieres.

www.acud.de 

About the performance

MONSTRATOR

MONSTRATOR is a performance rooted in the exploration of monstrousness that aims to critically question the theatrical apparatus of the Freak shows - where the Other, or the one who would stand outside the norm, became the Monster -  and Human Zoos  - where other cultures were exoticised or monstrified. Those theatrical demonstrations served as regulating mechanisms in which segregation, binary ways of thinking and processes of Othering were emphasized in order to assure a sense of normalcy to the ones attending the spectacle.In this work the aim is to investigate and explore ways of transforming and blurring the conventional roles of the monster, the show host and the audience in order to rethink the mechanisms in which alterity operates.Monstrator makes use of the aesthetics of the grotesque, in which everything is presented on a excessive, exaggerated, hybrid manner and oscillates between what is visible and invisible. The show evolves on an absurd constellation in which the lines between the comic  and the horror dilute. A universe inhabited by strangeness and uncanniness arises.

About the performer and choreographer

Helena Botto

Helena Botto (PT/DE) is a performer and choreographer based in Berlin. Her background is in physical theater: methodology of physical actions, Jerzy Grotowski's art as vehicle. From 1997 - 2005 she performed in Acto (PT) within this framework. She also studied with Meredith Monk, Andre Riot Sarcey, a.o. In 2006 she started to work as an independent artist developing her own performance work. In 2015 she received her MA in Solo/Dance/Authorship (Distinction) from the HZT, Berlin. Her recent works have been shown in Berlin (Uferstudios; Hau 2 - 100º), Portugal and Sofia (Antistatic Festival). She was awarded with Young Directors Scholarship/Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (2008), Tanzstipendium/Berlin Senate (2015) and TANZallianz Scholarship/CC Heidelberg (2016), Karl Hofer Gesellschatf (2017), Goethe Institut (2017), a.o. As a performer she collaborated with Filipe Pereira, Iva Sveshtarova, Alexandra Pirici and Christian Falsnaes, a.o.. She led workshops in Portugal and abroad - Camões Institute and currently teaches movement composition at Filmschauspielschule Berlin.

http://helenabotto.weebly.com