Club27

The Club 27 is an internationally known myth, simultaneously forbidding and glamourous. Its members – artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, or Amy Winehouse – all died aged 27.

The motif of those who passed away young, becoming immortal idols in the process, is the basis of Enis Turan’s work, asking the question what happens if the performing art of dance, characterised by fugacity and mortality, focuses on death. Club 27 puts death and standstill as thematic topics into a social context in which we are, on a daily basis and by means of various media, confronted with dying people for whom moments of grief seem almost impossible. In an accelerated present construed towards efficiency and consumerism, there is barely any space enabling pause and a dealing with death. Club 27 copes with the acceptance of death by way of creating a space for it. As a pursuing thought from vanitas and memento mori to recognise life and, in turn, dance not as fleeting but as “already having vanished”, a space for possibility opens, devoid of time and norm, in which death is stripped of its tragic weight and relevance. In Club 27, Turan shows a (re)interpretation of death that leads to death no longer marking a standstill and an ending. Club 27 takes pause to make death visible again as an event in life.

Enis Turan is a performer and choreographer. Born and raised in Turkey, he now lives and works in Berlin. Before starting in dance, he studied Aerospace Engineering at the Technische Universität Berlin. He graduated from the Tanzintensivprogramm (Intense Dance Programme) at the Tanzfabrik Berlin and studied Contemporary Dance at the Cologne University of Music and the Iceland Academy of the Arts.

Duration: 90 min.

In English.

In the performance on 30.06. there will be a video recording.

Notes on the performance and stagedesign

• At the beginning of the piece, the audience will be on stage; a little later, they can take their seats in the tribune.
• The piece uses loud music.
• The performers get dressed on stage and can be seen partially naked.
• The piece contains the use of urine.

Possible triggers in terms of content

• The piece discusses issues around death and dying.
• Depiction of kink experiences are part of the piece.