Watch Out!
02 October 2023, 8.30 - 11.30 pm
celebrate.dance.revolt.
a coproduction of SCHMITZ+MÖBUS and WEHR51
Protest in Cologne – Slogans and Kölsch sounds!
We march through the streets. Activist voices come out of the speakers of our vehicle. Who is having their say here? Carneval meets politics. "If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution" (Emma Goldman) / On the streets of Südstadt between Rheinenergie Wasserwerk, Comedia Theatre and Orangerie Theatre.
Concept / direction: Andrea Bleikamp | Concept / dramaturgy: Rosi Ulrich | Concept / performance: Anna Möbus, Franziska Schmitz | PR & public relations: neurohr & andrä
In co-production with the Freihandelszone
17 December 2022, 20 h:
#Moby Dick - spoken dance miniature with Thomas Krutmann and Volker Wurth,
Café Jakubowski, Mülheimer Freiheit 54, 51063 Cologne, a co-production of squad and WEHR51
"Mocha Dick" was a light-skinned sperm whale and known around 1800 by whalers off Chile for its aggressiveness. The region of the brain responsible for emotions is said to be many times more developed in whales than in humans; at the same time, the wild knows no good or evil. Is this an inspiration for our understanding of right and wrong?
"Whatever path one takes, it leads infallibly to the ... sea, where man finds himself, as in a mirror." (Herman Melville, "Moby Dick", 1851) And surrenders himself... above the deep sea, the most unexplored wilderness on the planet.
The adaptation of >squad< and >WEHR51< goes into the shallows of the three-day chase of "Moby Dick" described by Melville and into the phenomenon of the "Wellerman", a whaler's song from the same period that achieved >TikTok< world fame as a symbol of isolation and hope in times of pandemic.
Director: Andrea Bleikamp
dance: Volker Wurth
spoken word: Thomas Krutmann
21 December 2022, starting at dawn
HOLY SHIT - an holographic experiment - installation,
Window of Freihandelszone, Krefelder Str. 71, Köln
WATCH OUT: Keep your distance! How can we meet each other when a friend, stranger or acquaintance becomes a potential danger? An attempt, a frenzy, an escalation. Distance, distance, 1.5 metres. These are the buzzwords that determine our everyday life. If you observe people on the street or in the shops, you quickly notice that our encounters are characterised by distance. A constant dodging, observing, shifting. Like on a chessboard, one move determines the other, a constant measuring and assessing. Almost choreographically, we move along in a nightmarish dance. Is the other a friend or an enemy, how can I protect myself and where can we go with our longing for closeness?
Director/Concept: Andrea Bleikamp
Dance/Choreography: Sara Blasco Gutiérrez, Lisa Hellmich
A production of WEHR51 in co-production with tanz.tausch - tanz und performance festival, supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne, RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
WATCH OUT! tries to make the good visible, the nice perceptible.
you are not alone!
you are many!
you are more!
People from Cologne have a look outside your front door, in your neighbourhood, on the way to work, in the supermarket, just everywhere:
Our superheroine conquers public space: with small interventions in everyday life she infects society with a virus. In the shortest incubation period the virus spreads like wildfire
People a lookout for the Superheroine and her impulse-giving actions.
what if.
what if we just set a good example and are nice to each other.
help each other, support each other or just smile at each other on the street.
why?
because too many people don't.
because it's better for everyone and smiling makes us happy.
and if there is a positive example, would we be infected?
join it?
imitate?
pretend?
#benice
#bethechange
#bepassioned
#becooperative
#beyourself
WATCH OUT! tries to make the good visible, the nice perceptible and
to bring the irritation into public space.
With the tools of art we want to enrich daily life,
to help or just to create a moment of pause.
with: Sara Blasco Guitérrez, Lisa Hellmich
Concept, Direction: Andrea Bleikamp
PR: November 2018, Cologne
#1.1.1 TAGGING 14 KM ... #2.2.2 WHITE CUBE
# absorbing: 5. June 2020, 4 pm, Cologne
30. January 2021, 7 pm
DISTANCE - a procession at distance
in coproduction with tanz.tausch - dance and performance festival köln
15. January 2022, 1 pm, 19. Januar 2022, 5 pm,
#Hommage with Marion Bihler-Kerluku
Wallrafplatz Vorplatz zum WDR
25. June 2022, Thomas Krutmann
150 years RheinEnergie
17 December 2022, 20 h:
#Moby Dick - spoken dance miniature with Thomas Krutmann and Volker Wurth,
Café Jakubowski, Mülheimer Freiheit 54, 51063 Cologne, a co-production of squad and WEHR51
21 December 2022, starting at dawn
HOLY SHIT - an holographic experiment - installation,
Window of Freihandelszone, Krefelder Str. 71, Köln
Fotos: ©Jaqui Dresen / WEHR51
Trailer
DISTANCE
Neujahrvorsätze
White Cube
Interventions
TAGGING 14 KM
The Strait of Gibraltar
14 kilometres that decide between life and death
June 20, 2019 was World Refugee Day.
The WEHR51 took this opportunity to deal with the topic in an installation as part of the WATCH OUT! performance series. This time the Cologne Südbrücke was the venue. It leads up to almost 400m across the Rhine and connects the two sides. If you want to cross the river by swimming - despite the visibility of the other side - you will risk your life.
The strait of Gibraltar is 14km wide or narrow.
Also here you can look from one coast to the other. It is easy to imagine what is going on in a person who has the supposed paradise in sight.
The Strait of Gibraltar is considered one of the most dangerous waterways in the world due to currents and heavy shipping. Nevertheless, every year people who do not have much else to lose - apart from their lives - try their luck in the crossing.
By 30 July 2018, 22,091 people had reached the coast of southern Spain on this route.
More and more migrants are choosing the way via Morocco to Spain in search of a route from Africa to Europe.
There are about 400 of them at present - every day. By mid-June, the sea rescuers had already taken more people out of the water than in the entire previous year. There are different statistics on the number of missing persons. According to Spanish sea rescuers, 132 people have died or are missing during the crossing in 2019. There were 811 people in 2018. Estimates assume that the number is about three times higher than that of those washed up on the beaches - almost 2000 more deaths per year.
Symbolically, we have divided the southern bridge into 14 kilometres. We started on the "schäl Sick", the spurned Cologne side, and put the sign "Ceuta Marokko" there. This was our starting point. Kilometer 0. From there one looks at the beautiful southern city of Cologne, the country where milk and honey flow, in our case titled with a sign "Tarifa Spain". We decorated the river bank with golden foil, so that it glittered promisingly from the other side of the Rhine. At the 14 marked kilometres/stations we put up signs with information about the current refugee movements. For example, "68.8 million people are currently fleeing" or "At least 50 percent of all refugees are women and girls who are in constant fear of violence and sexual assault, hunger and disease, the loss of relatives and an uncertain future".
Crossing the Rhine is effortless. Everyone gets there when and where he wants.
For several years, plans have been made to build a bridge to connect Africa and Europe.
A permanent installation at the South Bridge is planned!
WHITE CUBE!
We live in a world where the constant distraction by digital media accompanies our entire daily life. Almost everyone has a smartphone in his hand; on the street, in the car, in the train or at the stop. Every live experience is documented and posted on social networks. Without that we are not present, not live! The lowered gaze has become normal, the right thumb in continuous use.
This is where the art project WATCHOUT! with his WHITE CUBE starts: 10 minutes WITHOUT smartphone, how is that supposed to work, who am I without connection? Chance or torture? WHITE CUBE gives people the opportunity to spend 10 minutes sitting on a chair in a large white cube. They deposit their smartphone at the entrance and enter the room without using any technology. Alone, only thrown back on themselves, they have the opportunity to endure themselves for 10 minutes without distraction, to explore, to feel, or even to be bored.
Are we still able to do this? Or will the experiment even release energies? Or is being thrown back on oneself in the digital world senseless, overestimated?
The art project WATCHOUT! is dealing with small artistic interventions in public space since November 2018. The format picks up idioms and behavioural patterns of our time and questions them in a playful manner.
The WHITE CUBE is the continuation of this series of interventions. It is addressed to people on the street who are occupied with their smartphones. They will be invited to enter the WHITE CUBE.