PoroCity constellation: How To Exit a Reality (Attempt 1 of 19) – Episode 1- BERLIN

A performance in collaboration with the Moon as part of the PoroCity constellation

How To Exit a Reality - A new performance in collaboration with the Moon by Andrea Božić and Julia Willms | TILT in collaboration with Billy Mullaney

We are presenting a new performance within the framework of the Post Dramatic Theatre Worldwide conference at the Academy of Arts in Berlin on the occasion of 20 years of the publication of Hans Thies Lehmann's influential book Post Dramatic Theatre. We are also taking part in the panel on the Artistic Positions Towards the Post Dramatic with Andrea Božić, Luciano Cáceres, Alexander Karschnia, René Pollesch, Falk Richter, Moderation: Bettina Masuch - full programme here

Performance:

For the occasion of this conference and to celebrate the anniversary of the Post Dramatic Theatre book, we have prepared a special spectacle in collaboration with the Moon and the night sky. Especially for the occasion, we have prepared the exact same night sky image here in Berlin as it was in 1696, the year of the founding of the Academy of the Arts which is hosting the conference. Today, the moon is in the exact same phase (waning crescent) in the exact same spot in the sky and against the backdrop of the exact same constellation of the stars, making the exact same replica of the night sky as it was on 23 November 1696 – 323 years ago.

For the performance, we have collected real nighttime dreams, memories, scientific facts and future projections and woven them into a tapestry. The performance is based on the Metonic score: the Moon's 19 year cycle where the Moon returns to exactly the same place in the sky with the same phase every 19 years. How To Exit a Reality (Attempt 1 of 19) is the very first version and an excerpt from what is to become a larger durational performance in collaboration with the moon.

Postdramatic Theatre Worldwide
Symposium

In 1999 Hans-Thies Lehmann’s ground-breaking essay Postdramatic Theatre was published, which provided an academic contextualisation – in concrete and accessible language – of the transformations underway in Western theatre since the late 1960s, of its expanded artistic means and of new approaches to the present-day in a world of rapidly shifting media and politics. The book was understood worldwide as an impetus for cultural opening. The symposium discusses the international resonance and perspectives of post-dramatic theatre in science and the arts.

Photos by Marcus Lieberenz