The performance will take place twice in a row: at 18:00 and 18:45. Each performance will last approximately 30 minutes. There are not many seats available, so please register in advance here. Meeting point: 17:50 and 18:35 at the entrance of the Kunsthalle Osnabrück.
„A Dusty Story“ is a performance by the artist Olga Hohmann. It is a mix of storytelling, theatre, and concert. With this performance, the artist reflects on a seemingly simple question: Why do fairy tales never mention that after one hundred years of sleep, Sleeping Beauty must have been completely covered in dust? This idea comes from the philosopher Georges Bataille. Starting from this thought, Olga Hohmann tells a poetic story. It is about sleep, time, forgetting, and the passing of everything. And it is about who tells stories and fairy tales, and how they are told.
Dust becomes an important image in the performance. Dust is what remains when everything else has passed. House dust, for example, consists largely of our own skin flakes. This means that we humans are often allergic to ourselves. To a part of our bodies that already belongs to the past. This idea inspired the artist.
Like Sleeping Beauty, some sculptures in the public spaces of Osnabrück awaken from a long sleep. These sculptures form a guiding thread through the performance, similar to a walk through the city. Olga Hohmann brings works by Heike Maria Unvorstellbar, Joachim Bandau, Fritz Szalinski, Axel Gundrum, and Rainer Kriester into focus. You could say that she “dusts off” these works. An important theme of the performance is giving voice. The artist asks: How does one find one’s own voice? How can we give a voice to people who are absent or not heard? For example, what would female fairy tale characters tell us if they were allowed to speak for themselves?
The performance also shows that hearing many voices, and making them audible, is important, both in written stories and in sound. For this reason, Olga Hohmann performs a new choral piece together with ten singers from the Osnabrück choir Vokalconsort, conducted by Stefan Lutermann. The piece is titled “Dornröschens Staub” [English: Sleeping Beauty’s Dust ] and will be premiered here. The music was composed by Olga Hohmann together with the composer Yannick Wittmann. The canon [a canon is a musical form in which several people sing the same melody at staggered intervals] follows the rhythm of a breathing technique that is otherwise used to help people fall asleep.
The costumes for the choir and for Olga Hohmann are designed by Eva Noeske. The costumes explore ideas of permanence, transience, and movement.
The performance takes place in the Bürgergehorsamturm at the Hasemauer. The location is special in terms of space and acoustics. The room is not heated. Some seating is available.
The venue is not wheelchair accessible and therefore not barrier-free. If you have limited mobility, assistance can be arranged in advance.
Contact for assistance, questions, and inquiries:
Ms. Annegret Haunhorst
haunhorst@osnabrueck.de
Phone: +49 541 323 4449