Oh, a Visitor! (2024)

World Premiere: May 15th, 2024, Kampnagel Hamburg

If I receive guests and offer them cake, I end up with less. But if I share thoughts with the guests, I end up with more. And what if I share a stage with guests, what do I actually give away?

“Oh, a Visitor!” counts, distributes, gives and takes. It invites you to think of the stage space as a divisible place and to share the visibility of an evening with other artists, to pass it on, borrow it, give it away, take it and make it disappear.

In view of the fact that artists are facing an increasing scarcity of resources as money and stage spaces become increasingly scarce, Juliana Oliveira, Antje Pfundtner and Matthew Rogers invite other artists to share the stage with them and make visible both stage scenes that have become invisible and those that have not yet seen the spotlight. The trio calls out and welcomes the people who come in, along with their ideas: “Oh, a visitor, do you wanna come in?”

Six years ago, Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft began organizing artistic sharing formats in addition to her stage plays: Around the questions “How do you share ideas? How do you share money? How do you share the stage?”, the TISCHGESELLSCHAFTEN have been exploring the sharing of resources ever since.

“Oh, a Visitor!” is the second piece by Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft that translates the sharing of visibility directly into a performance practice. “Oh, a Visitor!” is therefore not only a stage play, but also an invitation to many artists to share the stage before, during and after the performance. And so the artists Tanya Chizhikova, Hannah Kowalski, Israel Akpan Sunday and Mab Cardoso will each open one of the four performance evenings and show excerpts from existing or upcoming projects.

On the first evening (15.05.), choreographer Tanya Chizhikova, in dramaturgical collaboration with Anna Semenova-Ganz, will present an excerpt from her solo performance TUMBLEWEED, premiered in 2023, on the theme of being rooted.
On May 16, the artist Hannah Kowalski will present her concept of a children’s election office in a lecture performance, which will open on the occasion of the next parliamentary and federal elections.
On May 17, choreographer Israel Akpan Sunday will show an excerpt from his research into the different cultural connotations of proverbs.
And finally, on May 18, choreographer Mab Cardoso will present a sketch from her current movement research and question her cultural and subjective dance vocabulary.

These are the first four visitors to “Oh, a Visitor!”. During the performance itself, however, many more guests will join them:

Starting with the ukulele players from the Ukulele Hamburg e.V., who join in with a musical leitmotif of the piece, followed by the artists Dani Brown, Cornelia Dörr, Rike Jaglitz, Fabrice Mazliah, Sheena McGrandles and Rain Rose, who bring scenes from their stage works and use “Oh, a Visitor!” as an opportunity to make them visible again in a different context.

On the last evening (18.05.), the artists Josep Caballero García, Daniel Dominguez Teruel, Rike Jaglitz (for the collective Meine Damen und Herren) and Liz Rech will come together and close “Oh, a Visitor!” with an epilogue before inviting the audience to a get-together on stage together with Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft.

And now all that’s missing are the audience guests: “Oh, a visitor, do you wanna come in?”

Idea & concept: Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft
Choreography: Antje Pfundtner
Dance: Juliana Oliveira, Antje Pfundtner, Matthew Rogers
Dramaturgy: Anne Kersting
Music & sound: Nikolaus Woernle
Stage: Irene Pätzug
Costumes: Yvonne Marcour
Lighting: Michael Lentner
Production, PR & marketing: Hannah Melder 
Artistic production assistant: Vivienne Lütteken
Guests during the research phase: Jenny Beyer, Dani Brown, Cornelia Dörr, Daniel Dominguez Teruel, Christoph Grothaus, Chris Leuenberger, Sheena McGrandles, Noa Michalski, Manuel Muerte, Matthias Quabbe, Michael Schumacher, Anna Till, Katharina von Wilcke
The evenings are opened by: Tanya Chizhikova and Anna Semenova-Ganz, Hannah Kowalski, Israel Akpan Sunday, Mab Cardoso
Guests of the evenings: Dani Brown, Cornelia Dörr, Rike Jaglitz, Fabrice Mazliah, Sheena McGrandles, Rain Rose and Pätzug / Hertweck with the installation “Garagist”
Closing the last evening are: Josep Caballero García, Daniel Dominguez Teruel, Rike Jaglitz, Liz Rech
We would like to thank the following additional guests: Bärbel Bleckmann, Kerstin Budde, Stefan Carstens, Christine Ehrl, Susannah Ganter, Angela Gobelin, Michelina Gravina, Gabriele Grimm, Gertrudis Hengesbach, Andreas Hirschfeld, Ute Kellermann, Silke Klement, Petra Kolossa, Dagmar Krause, Claudia Kreutz, Miriam Lambertz, Viola Langkusch, Klaus-Dieter Lieb, Burkhard Lorenzen, Maike Majewski, Christine Meyer, Franziska Niemann, Marion Niewiadomski, Sylvia Panarinfo, Claudia Pansch, Iris Pasch, Claudia Petzoldt, Susanne Ressin, Marlies Schur, Nils Spiering, Erwin Srugies, Söhnke Storbeck, Christine Tsolodimos, Martina Vanicek, Maren Vater, Birgit Walter-Gensicke, Evelyn Wetzig, Annette Wiese

“Oh, a Visitor!” is a production by Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft in coproduction with Kampnagel Hamburg and FFT Düsseldorf. “Oh, a Visitor!” is funded by TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund with the support of the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Behörde für Kultur und Medien. 

Photos

Photos: Simone Scardovelli

Screenshots

Screenshots: Mathias Hollaender

Press

“The Hamburg choreographer Antje Pfundtner calls her company Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft’. This sums up how Pfundtner understands dance: as a collective exercise in solidarity. Solidarity that does not, however, stop at institutional criticism – in the end, it is about art. This is also the case in Pfundtner’s most recent work Oh, a Visitor!’, for which the relatively well-funded artist invited other theater makers onto the stage of the Hamburg production house Kampnagel, who brought their art with them as guest gifts (…). Art, in this understanding of dance, is home (…), the landlady welcomes you with open arms, and in the end everyone benefits. That this is a pretty utopia, in which the stronger help the weaker, is one thing; that the result is a beautifully diverse art, in which aesthetics that have little to do with each other form a whole, is another. And the fact that it is impossible to say exactly which aspect is actually the more important is perhaps the greatest quality of this art, which is as friendly as it is subversive. Increasingly, Pfundtner is also working outside of the art scene (…) and if she can take a little of her attitude, which cleverly undermines hierarchies, into the institutions, then a lot will have been gained.” Falk Schreiber/ magazine “tanz”

“‚Had I expected you today, I’d have cake there’ is sung at the beginning, but after a while the song turns into an angry rap: ‚There’s not enough cake!’, which can also be understood as a comment on Hamburg’s cultural funding. But there is enough cake for an exciting dance piece. And there is actually a lot more dancing than at previous Pfundtner evenings: There is revue-like tripping, there is stripping, briefly the hostess goes on pointe and plays the dying swan. Always friendly, always self-deprecating: you feel right at home.” Falk Schreiber/ Hamburger Abendblatt

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