Photo: Anja Weber

Consul and Meshie

A project by Antonia Baehr and Latifa Laâbissi. In a visual installation by Nadia Lauro
Wednesday 9.9. 20:30, Studio 5

Duration: 3.5 hours

Monkeys and apes have a privileged relation to nature and culture for western people: simians occupy the border zones between those potent mythic poles. In the border zones, love and knowledge are richly ambiguous and productive of meanings (…).

Donna Haraway, Primate Visions, 1989.

Apes, at least great apes, are among the «almost human» animals. This «almost» has turned them into a surface onto which humans project their ideas of what it means to be human. At the beginning of the 20th century the chimpanzees Consul and Meshie lived among humans as humans and came to consider themselves human. Antonia Baehr and Latifa Laâbissi adopt their own apish identities – with no guarantee for historical accuracy. Hairy and morally free, insolent and shameless, these two human monkeys occupy Nadia Lauro’s visual installation, which is roughly and casually nested away from the stage in quiet little corners of theatres and museums. From two leather limousine seats, whose furry innards gradually spread into the room, Consul Baehr and Meshie Laâbissi exhibit themselves for 3 1/2 hours.

Antonia Baehr is a Berlin-based choreographer, performer, filmmaker and visual artist. Her pieces are characterized by a non-disciplinary way of working, examining the fiction of the everyday and the fiction of theatre.

www.make-up-productions.net

Latifa Laâbissi is a dancer and choreographer. She brings multiple offstage perspectives to the stage, creating an anthropological landscape of stories, figures and voices. Dance «codes» are broken by unruly bodies, alternative stories, and montages of material marked by signs of the times.

www.figureproject.com

Nadia Lauro is a visual artist and set designer who works in various contexts – scenic spaces, landscape architectures and museums. She designs stage sets, environments, and visual installations with compelling dramaturgical force, thus generating new ways of seeing and being together.

www.nadialauro.com

Concept & Performance: Antonia Baehr & Latifa Laâbissi. Visual Installation: Nadia Lauro. Figures: Antonia Baehr, Latifa Laâbissi & Nadia Lauro. Sound and Light Design: Carola Caggiano. Design Game “French Theory Memory”: Hilà Lahav. Adminstration & Touring: Alexandra Wellensiek / make up productions & Fanny Virelizier / Figure Project. Thanks to: Vinciane Despret, Donna Haraway, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Melanie Poppe, Rayna Rapp, Constanze Schellow, Emilia und Kathrin Schlosser, Mia Sellmann, das Team von HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Jean- Yves und Danielle Auvray. Production: Figure Project / make up productions. Coproduced by: A co-production by Figure Project / make up productions and HAU Hebbel am Ufer Theater (Berlin), Le Magasin des horizons (Grenoble), CCN2, Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble, Xing / Live Arts Week VII (Bologna). Funded by: Hauptstadtkulturfonds and Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

Info:

Mouth/nose protection is required when not seated.

Tickets are valid for entry to the Uferstudio grounds 6 pm – 10 pm via the entrance at Bad Strasse 41a, and for the opening event at 7.30 pm with the Gray Voice Ensemble in the Uferstudios courtyard.