The music theatre performance ‘SPLASH!’ is all about water. Water as the source of life with which we associate elemental power, beauty and fascination or simply joy and sensual pleasure. But the careless use of this precious resource is also part of the story of water, which is so inextricably linked to our own.
In ‘SPLASH!’, the performing musicians create different sound spaces and invite children and adults to play interactively with their personal and cultural water memory.
Follow-up workshop after the performance on 11 May at 10 am
Artistic direction: Tina Jücker, Claus Overkamp
Assistant director and production assistant: Sonja Nellinger
Sound design: Tobias Gubesch
Sound direction: Angie Taylor
Lighting design: Joshua Koch
Set design: Katrin Lehmacher, Regina Rösing
Performance/ Music: Silas Eifler (double bass), Tobias Gubesch (clarinet), Alina Loewenich (recorder), Leonhard Spies (guitar), Tina Jücker
Public relations: Christiane Müller-Rosen
Theatre pedagogy: Vivien Musweiler
Photos: Ursula Kaufmann
Video recording & trailer: Florian Karner
Beethovenfest: Steven Walter, Lydia Kappesser, Marion Leuschner
Ruhrfestspiele: Monika Gies-Hasmann, Lilja Kopka, Anne Liebtrau
SPLASH is a co-production of Theater Marabu, Beethovenfest Bonn and Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen in cooperation with the Cologne University of Music and Dance and Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the Jupiter - Performing Arts for Young Audiences programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
When you go to the theatre, you don't usually expect a rain shower in the auditorium. It's a good thing that Theater Marabu can provide enough umbrellas so that all the audience members can hide under them if a shower suddenly does come. Not really, of course. And yet the audience shrieks excitedly when the shower is not over and the umbrellas, which have just been shaken out, have to be quickly unpacked again.
It drips, bubbles, steams, gurgles, dribbles and splashes in this interactive theatre and sound performance, which is interrupted from time to time by the gruff lifeguard (Tina Jücker), but always supervised to the best of her ability. Water is casually staged as a primal force, as a source of life, as a valuable privilege, as a biographical memory and as great fun. The playful, associative and humorous exploration does not avoid issues of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) - on the contrary: questions of climate justice interrupt the fun and are only experienced through the irritation. The fun continues thanks to the well-rehearsed ensemble with double bass, clarinet, recorder and guitar, as well as some home-made instruments and, last but not least, a kettle.
This production is remarkable not only because Tina Jücker and Claus Overkamp have arranged all of this in a fast-paced and varied way, but also because they demonstrate how sensitively and skilfully they know how to involve their young audience: with interactive, sensual and personal moments, with varied sound spaces and a playful ensemble. ‘SPLASH!’ is a genre jumper: concert and music theatre, performance and biographical theatre, interactive playground and edutainment, in the best sense of the word.
Thilo Grawe
Sensory stimulus: Water is used at times, e.g. humidifiers are used in the room.