Certain Songs (WT) is a piece about the human desire for the one voice that promises, with all-encompassing truth, safe conduct into the unsafe terrain of future realities. Which voice provides us with support and direction? Which authority faces us with empathy, and which voice is ours? Who talks to us, and most of all: Who do we listen to?
Between ancient oracles, nature worship and Christian ritual, between our mothers’ voices in our heads, algorithms and “Truth Social”, humanity, from the dawn of time, and with an eventful history, has always been laden with the quest for the one, the truthful voice that endows us and our action with orientation for a successful future. In partially newly written text as well as with literary fragments, in language, sound, and music, in movement and action, surrounded by shifting AI-generated landscapes, we encounter this polyphony in the person of a seer in Certain Songs (WT). Their body becomes an object, their mouth a mouthpiece of polyphony – in both a direct as well as in a transferred sense: They sing and speak in tongues and echoes, narrating of reality and visions of the future while taking the audience, via performative and audio-installational acoustic atmospheres, into a multi-perspective inspection of humanity’s eternal desire for instruction, direction, and unambiguousness.
Ben J. Riepe, born in 1979, studied dance and choreography at the Essen Folkwang University of the Arts. Following graduation, he was engaged as a stage dancer for Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch as well as with V.A. Wölfl / NEUER TANZ, and also elsewhere. The multiple award-winning choreographer, after having gone freelance in 2006, has been running his own production site in Düsseldorf since 2010. He has been the recipient of the Excellence Grant of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia since 2018 while also receiving the institutionalised support from the state as well since 2024. At tanzhaus nrw, his most recent premieres were 2020’s transmedia opera GESCHÖPFE and the musical theatre performance EVER|RÊVE (2023).
Duration: tba.
| Date | Accompanying programm |
|---|---|
|
Sat 21.03. |
talk afterwards: panel discussion |
Concept & choreography: Ben J. Riepe; Administration/organisation: Izaskun Abrego; Project management: Annegret Debitz; Communication: Nassrah-Alexia Denif; Choreographic assistance: Darwin Diaz; Technical management: Julius Kindermann; Social media: Lisa Carolin Schubert.
A production by the Ben J. Riepe Company. In co-production with tanzhaus nrw. Supported by the Kunststiftung NRW.
