Director
: Barbara Simonsen
www.detandetteater.dk
www.roy-hart-theatre.com
Music
: Laila Skovmand and the ensemble I Stage and light design:
Alli Stefansson I Manuscript and montage:
Barbara Simonsen I Video and editing
: Walli Höfinger
Performers: Kaya Anderson, Sheila Braggins (video), Walli Höfinger, Immanuel Kuhrt, Emanuela Lazzerini, Per Ovesen, Jesús Munoz, Pau Pons, Saule Ryan, Mariane Siem, Hedda Sonden, Laurent Stephan
All images and text by Charlotte Salomon, from the Collection Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam © Charlotte Salomon
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Fermata is a co-production by Det Andet Teater and Roy Hart Theatre, with an international cast of 11 performers and singers. Based on the life stories and works of artist Charlotte Salomon and voice teacher Alfred Wolfsohn – two European destinies.
Written and directed by Barbara Simonsen, music and vocal compositions by Laila Skovmand, stage and light design by Alli Stefansson. Fermata is the story of artist Charlotte Salomon and voice teacher Alfred Wolfsohn, two German Jews who met in Berlin for a brief period just before the outbreak of the war. Salomon fled to the south of France where she created the personal visual and musical epos Life – or Theatre? based on her own life story. Wolfsohn went to London where he developed his pioneering work of expressive voice training – the Human Voice – a work that was later carried on by the Roy Hart Theatre. Fermata tells the story of this extraordinary meeting and its consequences, using a full range of voices, music, visual images, dramatic dialogue and video projections of Salomon’s paintings as well as documentary videos. World premiere April 2010: Granhøj Dans, Aarhus.
Through the eyes of both we see the story from different angles as their paths cross. Both decide, in the face of the sufferings of a world war, to go through a journey to the underworld of destruction and pain to rediscover their lost soul and become a self again. The personal journeys of Wolfsohn and Salomon have left us a compelling legacy of the 20th century that we must try to grasp – of two European destinies and their answers to the question of what a human being is, and could be. Works from Life – or Theatre? used with kind permission from The Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam. Works by Alfred Wolfsohn used with kind permission from The Jewish Museum, Berlin. Supported by the Danish Arts Council, the Municipality of Aarhus, Nordic Culture Point, Region Midtjylland, Statens Kunstfond.
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