Hendrik Quast: Label for One – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin
Hendrik Quast:
Label for One
Label for One
Due to the Christmas market in Sophienstraße, the Sophiensæle cannot be approached by car on Dezember 17, 2023.
Hendrik Quast's performances play with grotesque and fecal elements and use comedy as a means of interrupting modes of speech, text and dramaturgy. Biographical references are fictionalized, theatrically exaggerated and alienated by borrowing from entertainment culture. Through the ambivalences of a humorous approach, violent mechanisms of ascribed identities are also questioned.
In terms of social mobility, there is no guarantee of return and the conditions of exchange remain unclear. Label for One is a continuation of Hendrik Quast's ongoing search for comic forms of articulation for declassed and chronically ill bodies. This evening invites the audience to the Festsaal for the manifestation of an ongoing work process about his own class change from non-academic circumstances into the art world. As material, he uses his personal archive of price tags, collected in a process of passing and teasing. Being able to interpret and implement dress and costume codes is an essential survival strategy in the theater and the world of the fine arts. These price tags now become a found food: He plans to eat them in a staged meal. In this way, he expands the view of the artistic practice of changing classes as a fragile process of labeling and relabeling one's own identity on and off the stage.
“Until I'm convinced, after shopping, that the things suit me and I suit them, I leave the price tags on. But when the return period expires, I would rather eat them. Otherwise, it might come out, what I can afford. By having this meal, I'm playing it safe that really no one finds out what I'm worth now.” (Hendrik Quast)
The information on accessibility is still in progress and will be updated as soon as possible. If any questions remain unanswered until then, please feel free to contact Hannah Aldinger at barrierefreiheit@sophiensaele.com or 030 27 89 00 35. Please note that details may change by the day of the event. Therefore, if you find out after you have purchased your ticket that the performance is no longer accessible to you, you can contact us for a ticket return at ticketing@sophiensaele.com or 030 27 89 00 45 until 5 business days after the event (Monday through Friday between 10am and 6pm).
Duration
- 50 minutes
Language
- German spoken Language
Light
- The lighting situation on stage and in the audience is rather bright. The audience is seated in the stage area.
Sound
- Loud sounds with a fast beat are used.
Other effects
- Fog is used.
- The performer will eat on stage.
Audience area
- Seating in the stage area
- 2 beanbag seats bookable according to availability
- 2 wheelchair seats bookable according to availability
Arrival
- Due to the Christmas market in Sophienstraße, the Sophiensaele cannot be approached by car on December 17. Further information on how to get there and parking can be found here.
Early boarding
If, for artistic reasons, the door to the auditorium does not open until very shortly before the performance begins, there is the option of early boarding.
Tickets
- Reservations can be made via the ticket telephone at 030 283 52 66, Monday to Friday from 4pm–6pm
- Via the online ticket shop
- At the box office
You can also find more information about accessibility here.
Text and Performance: Hendrik Quast
Artistic collaboration: Michel Wagenschütz
Sound: Toben Piel
Costume: Christina Neuss
Graphic design: Christina Mäckelburg
Production: Lisa Gehring, Patrick Kohn
A production by Hendrik Quast in coproduction with Sophiensæle. Media partners: Arts of the Working Class, Berlin Art Link, Das Wetter, Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
With a processual concept of theater, Hendrik Quast devotes himself to performing techniques such as ventriloquism, pantomime or musical singing and explores the dissolution of boundaries in entertainment culture. He allows these to collide with everyday practices, crafts and cultural techniques such as taxidermy, funeral floristry or nail design. Hendrik Quast's performances play with grotesque and fecal elements and use comedy as a means of interrupting modes of speech, text forms and dramaturgy. Biographical references are fictionalized, theatrically exaggerated and defamiliarized by borrowings from entertainment culture. Through the ambivalences of a humorous approach, violent mechanisms of identity attributions are also questioned. Born 1985 in Celle, the queer action and performance artist studied at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen. Since 2009, he has been working as a solo artist and in artistic cooperations with Maika Knoblich, among others. Quast’s performances have been realized in cooperation with institutions such as Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt am Main), Gessnerallee (Zurich), FFT Düsseldorf, Theater Rampe (Stuttgart), Sophiensæle and Kampnagel (Hamburg). His works have been shown at international performance and art festivals such as Impulse Theater Festival, steirischer herbst, Festival a/d Werf (Utrecht) and International Summer Festival Kampnagel (Hamburg). He has adapted several theater works as audio features for WDR Cologne (including Nagelneu, 2021, awarded Audio Feature of the Year 2021 by the Deutsche Akademie für Darstellende Künste). In 2022, he was a fellow at Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and at Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto, Japan. Since 2023, Quast has been an artistic PhD candidate at Stockholm University of the Arts and is completing a doctorate in cooperation with the Zurich University of the Arts on humor and illness in the performative arts.
