The Valkyrie
(Die Walküre)
Photo: Matthias Koslik
freely adapted from Richard Wagner
A new work by Theda Nilsson & Julian Wolf Eicke
Performative Installation
different admission times selectable • compulsory wearing of face masks • not fully accessible
Offenbachplatz
Duration:
approx. 3 hours
approx. 3 hours
DEBUT PERFORMANCE:
22 OCT 2020
22 OCT 2020
Freely adapted from Richard Wagner's second part of the RING DES NIBELUNGEN (THE RING OF NIEBELUNGEN, a cycle of four German-language music dramas composed by Wagner), Theda Nilsson, Julian Wolf Eicke and their team have created a large-scale, installation like work at the Offenbachplatz. Since March, the venue has been rebuilt and transformed - the premises are unrecognisable and can only exclusively be experienced by spectators in October and November. Where once was the hall, bar and foyer, the audience now immerses in a completely new theatre world and enters the building »Heidi‘s am Offenbach«. Despite the rebuilding, the house itself is nothing new. Having been founded in 1982 by Kurt Hermann Johns, the traditional Cologne theatre has been, thanks to high-quality construction, able to defy all odds. Since Johns' death in 2007, members of the ensemble, friends, supporters, family, and relatives have managed, maintained and lived in »Heidi‘s«. For the 2020/21 season, the new management team around Dr. Heidrun »Heidi« Johns (artistic director), Udo Donner (house director), Katya »Kaka« Neidinger (dramaturge) has chosen a very special audience favourite: THE VALKYRIE (DIE WALKÜRE). Embedded in the myths of Nordic mythology, the audience is sucked into the Wagnerian world: A cosmos full of seduction, incestuous love affairs and divine wrath. Night after night, you hear joyful shouting in »Heidi‘s« : Hojotoho heiaha! Hojotoho heiaha! In here, gods, demigods and mere mortals are eternally pursued by the piercing eyes of the Valkyries. With guts as yarn, warriors' heads as weights, and swords and arrows as a loom, fate and future are woven.
The German online portal for theatre criticism and coverage Nachtkritik.de, recently called Theda Nilsson and Julian Wolf Eicke two of the most ingenious stage inventors of our day (»zwei der genialsten Bühnenfinder unserer Tage.«) The artist duo has been working together since 2013, letting their theatrical installations move at the interface between theatre, visual arts, and performance. They stand out due to the remarkable experience of time and space in elaborately designed rooms that have been fine-tuned down to the smallest detail, being sometimes of distorted and deformed architecture. Their first Cologne related work will be shown from 22 October to 29 November 2020.
The German online portal for theatre criticism and coverage Nachtkritik.de, recently called Theda Nilsson and Julian Wolf Eicke two of the most ingenious stage inventors of our day (»zwei der genialsten Bühnenfinder unserer Tage.«) The artist duo has been working together since 2013, letting their theatrical installations move at the interface between theatre, visual arts, and performance. They stand out due to the remarkable experience of time and space in elaborately designed rooms that have been fine-tuned down to the smallest detail, being sometimes of distorted and deformed architecture. Their first Cologne related work will be shown from 22 October to 29 November 2020.
admission times
FRI 30 OCT +
FRI 06 + FRI 20 + FRI 27 NOV
8 pm • 8.30 pm • 9 pm • 9.30 pm
SAT 24 + SUN 25 + SAT 31 OCT + SUN 01 +
SAT 07 + SUN 08 + SAT 21 + SUN 22 + SAT 28 + SUN 29 NOV
4 pm • 4.30 pm • 5 pm • 5.30 pm
8 pm • 8.30 pm • 9 pm • 9.30 pm
Please make sure to be at the entrance at Brüderstr. 2 in good time before your admission time and wait outside the door until you are let in.
Duration: approx. 3 hours from admission time.
8 pm • 8.30 pm • 9 pm • 9.30 pm
Please make sure to be at the entrance at Brüderstr. 2 in good time before your admission time and wait outside the door until you are let in.
Duration: approx. 3 hours from admission time.
conept: Theda Nilsson
DIRECTION AND STAGE: Theda Nilsson & Julian Wolf Eicke
Costume: Lena Bösch & Theda Nilsson
COMPOSITION AND SOUND DESIGN: Jacob Suske
Choreography: Theda Nilsson & Juan Corres Benito
stage lighting: Manfred Breuer
dramaturgy: Lea Goebel
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Dennis Nolden
STAGE DESIGN ASSISTANCE: Claudia Vaes, Carlotta Monty Meyer
COSTUME ASSISTANT: Julia Misiorny
DRAMATURGY ASSISTANT: Dominika Siroka
Theda Nilsson & Julian Wolf Eicke
In 2004, the duo Theda Nilsson & Julian Wolf Eicke established themselves in the German theatre scene with their 240-hour non-stop performance MEAT at the Schaubühne. One of their best-known projects is the triptych CELLAR DOOR (2016), staged for the Schauspielhaus Wien, Vienna. Fragments of seven single-family houses in the Austrian province, which were inhabited by 40 performers, were the generator for an online platform that brought the audience into the darker scenery of the virtual world.
In 2018, the artist duo attracted attention with two productions. For the narrative of Boccaccio's DEKAMERON, they designed a 21-day installation in the form of a necropolis - a place that, as a burial and consecration site, is characterised by the last will of the deceased, by the lust for life and the premonition of death.
For BETREUTES LEBEN - EZZELINO LIVE CAMS, they created a world between film set, live chat and website within the framework of the Wiesbaden Biennale, which was based on the scandalous novel by the Swedish author Nikanor Teratologist. Here, again, the performers pushed themselves to their physical boundaries during the 11-day non-stop performance.
A fundamental part of the duo's work is the collaboration with other artists and the selection of performers. Each time, Nilsson & Eicke assemble their ensemble to a new composition of professional performers and other people with diverse social backgrounds and a different range of experience.
Theda Nilsson completed her training in architecture at the UDK Berlin and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and worked with the collective SIGNA for several years. Since 2020, she works as a professor of stage and costume design at the HfBK Dresden. Julian Wolf Eicke studied stage design at the Universität der Künste in Munich and received his diploma in costume and stage design from the Kunsthochschule Weißensee Berlin. The couple lives together with their dog in Berlin.
In 2018, the artist duo attracted attention with two productions. For the narrative of Boccaccio's DEKAMERON, they designed a 21-day installation in the form of a necropolis - a place that, as a burial and consecration site, is characterised by the last will of the deceased, by the lust for life and the premonition of death.
For BETREUTES LEBEN - EZZELINO LIVE CAMS, they created a world between film set, live chat and website within the framework of the Wiesbaden Biennale, which was based on the scandalous novel by the Swedish author Nikanor Teratologist. Here, again, the performers pushed themselves to their physical boundaries during the 11-day non-stop performance.
A fundamental part of the duo's work is the collaboration with other artists and the selection of performers. Each time, Nilsson & Eicke assemble their ensemble to a new composition of professional performers and other people with diverse social backgrounds and a different range of experience.
Theda Nilsson completed her training in architecture at the UDK Berlin and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and worked with the collective SIGNA for several years. Since 2020, she works as a professor of stage and costume design at the HfBK Dresden. Julian Wolf Eicke studied stage design at the Universität der Künste in Munich and received his diploma in costume and stage design from the Kunsthochschule Weißensee Berlin. The couple lives together with their dog in Berlin.
Cast