Greatest Show on Earth
#animaltrainer #finaljump #lioncat #resurrection
People, animals, sensations! See the crème de la crème of the international performance avant-garde! In a circus show, 14 artists take on the challenges facing humans in the 21th century, and combine the risks of body art with the spectacle of physical performance. Enter the ring of theatrical magician Philippe Quesne.
Be there as performance duo Hendrik Quast and Maika Knoblich put the relationship between man and animal to the test. They train pet cat Leo and terrier Lilly and bring Leo’s death-defying leap back into the ring! See Europe’s most radical choreographer couple, Florentina Holzinger and Vincent Riebeek, in an exposing trapeze act. Experience Meg Stuart and fashion designer Jean-Paul Lespagnard’s spectacular survival training for the future! Hold your breath as Valérie Castan and Antonia Baehr perform their dressage act of the self. Allow yourself to be confounded by Eisa Jocson’s performance of happiness. Be amazed as contact Gonzo does a daring battle with their death machine! And on top of all this: the neo-Dadaist 2-person “thing”-orchestra Les Trucs will be the circus band.
Password: Great_Show2016
Idea, curator Akira Takyama
Production Port B, Tokyo & Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt am Main.
Co-production Staatstheater Mainz, Hessisches Staatstheater Mainz
Funded by German Federal Cultural Foundation, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, Japan Foundation, Hessian Theatre Academy
One act stages the uncooperative behaviour of a dog and a cat. They never stop wittering. Animals, that as soon as they are able to talk, become even more impolite than humans (…).
Frankfurter Rundschau, 3 September 2016 Judith von Sternburg
Also a real cat, at first disguised as a lion, gets a lot of applause performing her own death – and resurrection.
Fuldaer Zeitung, 6 September 2016, Hanswerner Kurse
Here we have a real pet cat, Leo. For our amusement, she wears a lion’s mane. A pinscher named Lilly dances attendance on Leo. We as audience experience how an animal pretends to be trainable when the cat gets ready for the death-defying leap and the trainers prompt the cat with her own thoughts. Far away from the nature of the natural. Our politically correct relationship to nature defines the lap pet. With this insight, Hendrik Quast and Maika Knoblich make the audience laugh out loud.
Tanz, Arnd Wesemann, October 2016
Then Lilly and Leo prepare for the big act, but the cat’s stubbornness, characterized by its laziness, torpedos the action. The dog is in a better mood but also does what he wants, while the two human participants narrate the thoughts of the animals. Very smart animals that see right through the circus enterprise.
SZ plus, 13 October 2016, Egbert Tholl