Programme zentral stages

MARAÑA

Inside – Leg Lag – Unk
Chile, Germany / Thu 15/8, 18 hrs, Fri 16/8, 21 and 23 hrs, Sat 17/8, 20 and 22 hrs

Maraña transforms the stage into a unique habitat of colours, materials, movements and sounds. Its performative installation is a huge organism: mesmerizing like an underwater world full of anemones, archaic like our deepest fears, magical like a psychodelic fairytale knitted into being. It lives and pulsates, perpetually creates new colourful creatures which interact, probe and melt into each other, dive deep and dissolve only to reemerge as something new. Fantastic!

DÍRTZTHEATRE

Alias / Nonna(s) don’t cry
France / Thu 15/8 and Fri 16/8, 20 and 22 hrs and Sat 17/8, 21 hrs

The Short Stories «Alias» and «Nonna(s) don’t cry» by French company Dirtztheatre combine contemporary dance and puppetry in a subtle and surprising way. Each piece portrays an encounter between a human and an artificial body and questions our identity in different generations and stages of life.

MERCIER & GRAND

Shake it off again
Switzerland, France / Sat 17/8, 23 hrs

«Over the mountains of the moon, down the valley of the shadow» - the songs of Romain Mercier and Cosima Grand talk about the ups and downs of the emotional life. Their electro-pop road trip is the contemporary answer to Schubert’s romantic song cycle  «Winterreise». The songs were composed for Cosima Grand’s latest dance piece «Hitchhiking through Winterland». For the concert version, they combine music and performance and dance happens on and in front of the stage.

ANNINA POLIVKA & TILDE VON OVERBECK

Kid’s disco
Switzerland / Sun 18/8 / Sun 25/8 / Sun 1/9, 16 hrs

Stage clear for dance loving kids! Theatre makers Annina Polivka and Tilde von Overbeck invite again to the popular disco for children. This is not about sitting still and watching but about trying out movements to music and experiencing the joy to move. Children are invited to get up and join in: Challenge gravity in playful manners, perform somersaults to clapping and stomping and try putting a jelly baby into your mouth with your toes!

MILIAN OTTO

Wahnwitz und Gelegenheit
Germany / Sun 18/8, 22 hrs

In a digital era, in which music is mainly consumed like fast food and listening habits are always conditioned by the same flavour enhancers, singer-songwriter Milian Otto has the audacity to focus on words. His blunt view of the world is fine food for the synapses of his listeners.

CIA DU’K’TO

Cafuné
Spain / Mon 19/8 and Wed 21/8, 20 and 22 hrs, and Tue 20/8, 21 hrs

The caress as a gesture of relationship: a sweet caress, which sometimes shrouds feelings of frustration, a bitter caress, which reveals the most genuine feelings, or a playful caress, which can lead to a multitude of adventures. The harmonic balance between consonance and discrepancy is the fabric of human relationships. Cia Du’K’tO investigates the different aspects of touch in a breath-taking artistic dance performance.

THEATER NEUMARKT

Most Gruelling Test of the Endurance Dance Contest
Switzerland / Thu 22/8, from 16 to 22 hrs

The new artistic direction of Theater Neumarkt takes over the Zentral Stage and calls for the ultimate challenge: The first chapter of the three-part show «They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?», with which it opens its 2019/2020 season, is a four-and-a-half hour dance marathon: The dancing contestants not only compete for the public’s favour but also for a place in the ensemble of the theatre! Fancy a new job? What are you waiting for!?

Registration open on tanzmarathon@theaterneumarkt.dont-want-spam.ch or on-site.

FATIMA MOUMOUNI & UGUR GÜLTEKIN

INES Late Night Show with guests
Switzerland / Fri 23 and Sat 24/8, 23 hrs

The first postmigrant late night show of Switzerland! Slam poet Fatima Moumouni and rapper Uğur Gültekin, together with guests, investigate the pulse of Switzerland’s migrant reality and make room for a new confederacy. Expect comedy, development aid, talks, musical contributions and lots of çay. (In German)

FLÜCHTLINGSTHEATER MALAIKA

Es ist angerichtet!
Switzerland, with an international team / Tue 20/8, 18 and 20 hrs and Wed 21/8, 21 hrs

The immigrant theatre Malaika, an integration and theatre project for people with a refugee background, is doubly present at the Zentral with what it is known best for: cooking and staging theatre. On the first floor of the Zentral, it acts as host, on the stage, it presents excerpts from its latest play «Die Küche ist voll!». A touching, amusing and entertaining journey with specialties from all over the world.

KINDERZIRKUS ROBINSON

Turbulente Jahres-Zeiten
Switzerland / Wed 21/8, 16 hrs

It has become a small tradition: As in previous years, the children’s circus Robinson shows excerpts from its latest programme «Turbulente Jahres-Zeiten» on the Zentral Stage. With wit, tempo and artistry, the 52 artists flip through the calendar and demonstrate: A year has way more than just twelve months.

BARKAN & CALLESEN

May I speak about dance?
Denmark / Thu 22 and Fri 23/8, 22 hrs

With irreverence and plenty of humour, choreographer Boaz Barkan and dancer Jørgen Callesen investigate dance: What is dance, what can it accomplish and how is it experienced? While one of them is moving, the other comments and questions. An odd and rather intelligent lecture-performance on contemporary dance, which effortlessly associates Jerôme Bel with butoh and Tatsumi Hijikata with somatic practice.

DUO2FILLES / LUCA LUGARI

Opposites attract / Bianco sporco
Portugal, Brazil, Italy / Fri 23/8, 19 and 21 hrs, Sat 24/8, 20 and 22 hrs and Sun 25/8

Two women with different personalities and backgrounds need to get along in a constricted space: The short piece of the trapeze artists Duo2filles demonstrates that this is possible without always having to be on the same page. A humorous essay on friendship.

«Bianco sporco» by juggler Luca Lugari is an ode to the dissolving boundaries between subject and object, artist and clubs. An insane solo leaving the audience guessing who is juggling with what or whom.

NILO & FU

De Ritter Schlötterli im Häxewald
Switzerland / 4 years plus / Sat 24/8, 16 and 18 hrs

The chipmunk Goldöhrli has disappeared and the adventure begins! In the music theatre by Nilo & Fu, the kids sing the song of Knight Schlötterli, outwit the robber and the witch and bravely assist the little knight. At the end, they are awarded their share of the royal treasure. (In Swiss German)

PUNTMOC

GagsOnTrix!
Spain / Sun 25/8 19 and 21 hrs, Mon 26/8 and Tue 27/8, 20 and 22 hrs

No set, no words, only movement, rhythm, sounds and a generous amount of surrealistic humour: That’s all the three brothers Héctor, Guillem and Juli need for their brilliant mime show. Characters and figures switch rapidly: What just seemed to be man is now beast. One can hardly keep up being amazed.

LÉO TARDIN

Piano Solo
Switzerland / Sun 25/8, 22 hrs

He might just be little bit crazy: the Genevan pianist and prizewinner of the Jazz Festival Montreux Léo Tardin. Be it in empty swimming pools, abandoned factories or Medieval vaults, he lives out the freedom of improvisation and musical nonconformism everywhere and enthuses listeners with his virtuosity.

CIE LÜ

Déja Lü
Italy, Switzerland / Mon 26/8 and Tue 27/8, 21 hrs and Wed 28/8, 20 and 22 hrs

A space divided into four parts: four separate universes or a big playground? At the centre there is a mast, which opens the way to a fifth, vertical world. Artist Carla Kühne and acrobat Luca Torrenzieri have different cultural backgrounds, ways of expression and movement qualities. Their interaction is determined by the movement of dance, the seeming haphazardness of juggling and the risk of mast acrobatics. An artistic search for the common in the parallel, the complicity in the diversity.

COMPANY MAFALDA

Vicky setzt Segel
Switzerland / 4 years plus / Wed 28/8, 16 and 18 hrs and and Sat 31/8, 16 hrs

The Zurich dance theatre Mafalda founded by dancer Teresa Rotemberg lures its audiences into very unique and complex worlds. Vicky’s world is a cosmos full of humorous, bizarre, reflective and poetic scenes and images. Courageously, she sets sail to discover new, distant worlds. But in order to do so, she needs the help and support of her young spectators…

DIEGO SINNIGER

Liov
Spain / Thu 29/ 8, 18 and 20 hrs, Fri 30/8, 20 hrs and Sat 31/8, 20 and 22 hrs

Love and violence, victim and perpetrator, desire and abuse - only a fine line separates the extremes. Choreographer and dancer Diego Sinniger and dancer Kikko Lopez investigate those extremes. Their dance performance «Liov» unveils the inner and outer conflicts and their impact on human relations.

FATIMA MOUMOUNI & LAURIN BUSER

Gold
Switzerland / Thu 29/8, 21 and 22 hrs and Fri 30/8, 22 and 23 hrs

«Gold», the first programme of the slam poetry duo Fatima Moumouni and Laurin Buser is full of puns, immediacy and poetry. Since four years, the duo named «Zum Goldenen Schmied» has elaborated its massive word creations, which combine humour and linguistic sensitivity with profound topics. A dynamic show with duo and solo texts on a topic that is really worth it. (In German)

SCHWALBE & ELEFANT

Switzerland / Sat 31/8, 23 hrs

Schwalbe & Elefant play music at the intersection of free improvisation, unpretentious songs and Swiss German poetry. Harpist Linda Vogel has expanded the sound spectrum of her electro-acoustic harp and creates new sounds with the help of effect devices and extended playing techniques. Singer Dalia Donado crafts linguistic decoration from words. Word music characterized by the depth of existential questions and the lightheartedness of musical curiosity. (In Swiss German)

CIA. ES

IN
Italy, Spain / Fri 30/8 and Sat 31/8, 21 hrs and Sun 1/9, 19 hrs

«I have the impression to be only free when it is me who turns the key. In this moment, I am not the one who locks myself in but the one who locks the other out.» The solo «IN» of clown and pantomime Emiliano Sanchez Alessi is a highly amusing play with the audience around the idea what it means to be in or out. It’s all question of perspective.

MELT TRIO

Stroy
Germany / Sun 1/9, 20 hrs

The internationally renowned Berlin jazz combo Melt Trio sets a highlight to the closing of this year’s Zentral programme. Peter Meyer (guitar, electronics), Bernhard Meyer (bass) and Moritz Baumgärtner (drums, gongs, megaphone) effortlessly perform between clear contours and unfurling forms, wonderful melodies and richness of sound, oscillate between interesting harmonies and rhythmic finesse and set a unique signpost in the European musical landscape.