Deathfragments Büchner 23 years old

Georg Büchner reedited and recomposed by japanese noise artist Tetsuo Furudate

Résumé

Several themes recur in Büchner's writings:
1) Death.
Although he could not have suspected that he would die so young, his texts very often describe scenes involving death in a way that every young generation longs to embrace.
2) Sounds
What sounds from the depths of the earth did he fear?
3)
Büchner describes death and sounds with the vocabulary of the rising 19th century psychoanalysis.
I want to compare Büchner's literary descriptions of death with his own dying as recorded in Caroline Schulz's diary.

I want to recreate the sound and echo of Oberlin's voice in Lenz's mind.

I wonder if Oberlin's behavior toward Lenz was good or bad, wrong or right. It reminds me of the tragic correspondence between Artaud and Riviére.

For the second time since 2008, Theater Bielefeld has been chosen as the venue for a world premiere that will take place as part of the "Fonds Experimentelles Musiktheater," a joint initiative of the Kunststiftung NRW and the NRW KULTURsekretariat. The aim of the fund is to develop unusual music theater formats through collaborations between permanent houses and independent groups. The production selected for Bielefeld this year deals in an experimental way with a figure who was himself an experimenter in his own time, a contemporary of the future: Georg Büchner.

In early 19th century Germany, Büchner was a poet of almost uncanny clairvoyance. His works make one marvel at how far the "antennae" of this man, who was young until his death - Büchner died at the age of 23 - reached: Even today, his language and his characters sound modern, contemporary, oppressive and evocative.

Based on the fragmentary character of Büchner's language, Tetsuo Furudate and Edwin van der Heide stage Büchner's texts in a way that is initially at odds with customary notions of "drama". Büchner does not appear on stage in a "coherent" interaction of acting action, dramatic recitation, imagery and lighting direction. Death fragments is rather a composition of language, electronic "noise music", light and movement, in which all these components initially follow their own laws. When they then meet in the space and in the special performance situation, they unfold their very own poetic power: complementing each other, ignoring each other, rubbing against each other.

The team around the Japanese sound artist Tetsuo Furudate, who is responsible for the concept, text editing and composition, has found its very own, fascinating way to question the relationship between language, music, action, space and light in a new way.