LIQUID

Laudation for the Kurt Hackenberg Prize 2024
"Listening to the water. The female voice (Anna Möbus) sounds evocative, very close to the ear through the headphones. She wants the attention of those who have gathered to join WEHR51 on a performative walk from Ebertplatz to the Rhine. Listen carefully! Here, nature is fighting for its rights, not in the figurative sense, but literally to be recognised as a legal entity. Just like in Ecuador, which granted nature constitutional rights in 2008, which have since been developed within the framework of case law. Listening to the water - its sounds and compositions inspired by it, the many legends and myths that all cultures tell about water. LIQUID combines the political with the poetic level and this in turn with scientific findings and takes the audience on a journey of discovery through Theodor-Heuss-Park in the north of Cologne. Listening to the water - LIQUID is the second part of a sustainability cycle about the four elements, which WEHR51 began last year with the impressive accompaniment to the death of an oak tree in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum. With LIQUID, Andrea Bleikamp (director), Rosi Ulrich (text and dramaturgy), Jens Standke (video) and their team are bringing political theatre to where it absolutely belongs these days: on the streets and squares of the city. To the public of an urban society that is full of problems and hardly knows where to turn and yet needs to deal with its own affairs as urgently as possible.
Listening to the water. The natural sciences have already decoded the molecular properties of water, so it is only logical that a performer with a mobile laboratory joins the narrative voice via headphones to guide the audience on their journey to the waters towards the Rhine. The performer explains aggregate states, describes how water came to be on earth and why it is imperative that humans change the way we use resources. Asta Nechajute gives this character - to quote old Brecht - the social gesture of a scientist driven by the courage of despair. And who incorporates every disturbance of that special clientele that is at home around Ebertplatz into her presentation in a manner that is as sovereign as it is friendly. In this way, the concept of artistic intervention in public space comes as close to its idea of initiating new perspectives for social and political action as is rarely seen. Listening to the water: a political act in the spirit of the Kurt Hackenberg Prize. With this award, the jury recognises not only the artistic quality, but also the cleverness and courage of WEHR51 in turning the city and its river into a stage to reflect on new perspectives for the urgent political task of protecting and preserving natural resources."
(2024 Dr Sandra Nuy, jury member)

"Slowly, beguilingly and filled with admonishing voices, the water as the main protagonist of 'LIQUID' makes its way from Ebertplatz to the nearby Rhine. ... For around 80 minutes, ensemble members and audience embark on a scientific-mythological journey to the beginnings and looming ends of life."
(Choices, July 2024, Thomas Dahl)

"The actress Asta Nechajute leads the audience along the way in the role of a lively scientist. ... A voice over headphones explains how water is a central element of creation myths, especially in indigenous societies. Almost all of these narratives are united by the idea of viewing man and nature holistically. Not as a hierarchical structure in which man is the so-called crowning glory of creation, but as a fragile coexistence in which radical human intervention has fatal consequences for life on earth as a whole.
If one follows the theory favoured by science that water reached the Earth, which was still hot at the time, as ice via comets, evaporated and later fell down on the cooled Earth as continuous rain over thousands of years, then water can be seen as an alien, the "scientist" tells us, whose arrival made life possible in the first place. High time, then, according to the central idea of this performance, to listen to this guest and give him a voice at the same time."
(Kölner Stadt Anzeiger, 29 May 2024, Norbert Raffelsiefen)