Vampires are sexy, elegant and well-integrated - at least that's what current pop culture suggests. Almost forgotten is the horror that first entered the cinema screen almost 100 years ago with the monstrous and simultaneously awkward figure of Nosferatu. In her new performance, Anna Natt, together with experimental musician Robert Curgenven, examines this particular vampire figure from F.W. Murnau's and Werner Herzog's films for its queerness: a being with non-normative desires who lives outside the heteronorm and whose grotesque movements recall the stiffness and loss of precision of aging bodies. Inspired by expressionist silent film, the monstrous, the insatiable, the vampire's too-much-ness meets the feminine - which in turn is itself defined in heteronormative discourses as the threatening "other." Within Curgenven’s live multichannel pipe organ composition, Anna Natt's Nosferatu awakens. Here he* may finally be and belong!
ANNA NATT received her training in traditional flamenco dance in Seville, Spain. Her stage performances, video works and interactive pieces have been shown internationally in theaters as well as galleries and alternative spaces. Beyond her dance training, she draws inspiration from various somatic and contemporary practices. In this way, she seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the body and its many facets. Another central theme in her work is the connection to trance and dream states.
ROBERT CURGENVEN produces albums performances and installations that emphasize physicality, our embodied response to sound and its correspondence to location, air, weather and architecture. Using such diverse means as pipe organ, turntables and dubplates, field recording through to feedback he has created works for National Gallery of Australia National Museum of Poland (Krakow), Palazzo Grassi (Venice), Transmediale (Berlin), National Sculpture Factory (Ireland) and festival performances including Sydney Festival, Maerzmusik (Berlin), Insomnia (Tromsø) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam). Curgenven is an associate composer with the Contemporary Music Centre (Ireland) and guest lecturer in music and sound throughout Australia and Europe.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION, PERFORMANCE Anna Natt COMPOSITION, PIPE ORGAN Robert Curgenven VIDEO, VIDEO INSTALLATION Dalia Castel DRAMATURGY Maya Weinberg LIGHT DESIGN Loïc Iten CHOREOGRAPHIC OUTSIDE EYE Yalda Younes ARTISTIC COOPERATION, PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT Matthias Püschner
A production by Anna Natt in cooperation with SOPHIENSAELE. Funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds. With the kind support of Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte. Media partner: taz, die tageszeitung.