MEDIATHEK

How is it possible that, in our perception, our bodies appear as something fundamentally different from the ham in our sandwiches? Meat is culture, on our plates as well as on our bones. It is inscribed with countless traditions and rituals which manage to simultaneously fascinate and repel us.

"Requiem for a piece of meat" examines the material of meat beyond commonly agreed hierarchies and body economies. Under the direction of Daniel Hellmann
a group of dancers and vocalist starts to unravel the traditional order of bodily functions and assignments. Dancing, tripping, groaning and grunting, they transform the stage into a space of interspecies encounters. Who here is animal, human, thing? Who is livestock for whom?

The supposedly clear distinction of human and animal existence starts to flicker. A meticulous, sensuous and critical study of body pictures forms up into a Requiem in seven movements. A commissioned work by the young composer Lukas Huber confronts the historical material with the sound of intestines, the voices of animals and the musicality of their processing. Poetry and objectivity. A farewell to allegedly established categories. A funeral mass in the midst of life.