Landsberg - An acting workshop does not per se mean learning texts - especially not if it is led by the ELLE collective, which has positioned itself with its immersive village theater.
During his workshop as part of the art-keep-watch program "Holzwege", the participants were allowed to take the Frauenwald.
And even wallow in the mud.
For two and a half days, eight young people dealt with the forest and the topic of 'camouflage' - "performatively", emphasizes ELLE collective member Luis Lüps: not only theoretically in conversation, but also - and above all - through action. "We trained the participants' self-awareness and group awareness through body work," describes Lüps. The topic of camouflage was obvious in the Frauenwald because of its history - the nitrocellulose factory in the Nazi era.
The results: two performances. On Saturday the participants constructed their costumes. Among other things, a hole was dug in the forest and turned into a mud pit with a watering can - “to wallow in it,” says Lüps. The second performance on Sunday was a walk from the Alte Wache in and through the city, for three hours, of course in the costumes, 'camouflaged': mud-encrusted suits, around the head a crown of forest. There were seven previously determined locomotion patterns, for example “horse”, which as a kind of command called the participants to a certain form of movement. Or the siege of a passerby.
“The audience speculated all sorts of things,” reports Lüps.
Perhaps “an action against the concreting of the world”, the conquest of the city by nature?
- You could have read a lot into it.
The ELLE collective was not concerned with a specific statement, but with a broad-based discussion of the participants with the topic of the environment in the broadest sense: the reactions of the audience and the interaction with the audience as 'environment'.
There was plenty of reaction and action: the participants made the best use of their walk through the city.
