New Joy
It has nothing to do with happiness or optimism – those would fall under ‘Old Joy’. In New Joy, Eleanor Bauer confronts the chaos, excess, and absurdity of life head-on in this post-truth information age. To what extent are we able to distinguish real information from noise? Can we create new forms of understanding by cooperating better with one another and with machines?
To grasp the challenges of our age by the horns, New Joy imagines a 21st-century version of Dadaism: dataism. Jumping registers between different languages and forms, from body language to spoken language to computer language and back again. From emotional to artificial intelligence. From movement to sound. Bauer and her partner in crime, composer Chris Peck, mix aesthetic, social, and informational dimensions, resulting in a cyber a cappela Dataist opera. Be swept into the eye of the sensory information storm, where a training programme takes place for everyone who is grappling with life in the now.
• As an artist-in-residence at Kaaitheater (2013-2016), Eleanor Bauer (ex-PARTS) presented productions such as her triangle-tent-time trilogy and the ‘talk show, variety show, shit show’ Bauer Hour. Along with Chris Peck, she created This is not a Popsong and Meyoucycle.
concept and direction Eleanor Bauer & Chris Peck | choreography Eleanor Bauer | music Chris Peck | scenographic design collaboration Karel Burssens & Jeroen Verrecht/88888 | costume design collaboration Sofie Durnez | instrument design assistance Shane Koss | created with and performed by William Bartley Cooper, Kevin Fay, Gina Haller, Michael Lippold, Veronika Nickl, Anouk Peeters (for these performances Veronika Nickl will be replaced by Eleanor Bauer) | co-production Schauspielhaus Bochum, Dounaufestival, Festival Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Seine Saint Denis
