A conversation with German artist Raimund Hoghe about his works for the stage and his relationship with the body, ritual and memory, accompanied by screenings of fragments of his works. This meeting with Raimund will give audiences a chance to explore his work and contextualise it within his personal universe, before he presents two of his works at the Mercat de les Flors between the 30th of November and the 3rd of December.
Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote of throwing the body into the fight. These words inspired me to go on stage. Other inspirations are the reality around me, the time in which I live, my memories of history, people, images, feelings and the power and beauty of music and the confrontation with one's own body which, in my case, does not correspond with conventional ideals of beauty. To see bodies on stage that don't comply with the norm is important - not only with regard to history, but also in relation to present developments, which are leading humans to the status of design objects. On the question of success: it is important to be able to work and go your own way - with or without success. I simply do what I have to do.
-Raimund Hoghe-
In his first solo Meinwärts (1994), Raimund Hoghe looked at the life and work of Jewish tenor José Schmidt in the 1940s. Chambre separée dealt with his childhood in the Germany of both the economic miracle and the persistent shadows thrown by the Nazi past. Another Dream is all about the sixties' mood of awakening. Raimund Hoghe's Tanztheater manages to be explicitly political without neglecting form. The ritual severity of Japanese theatre combines with American performance art, German expressionism and his own interest in human feelings and socio-political states to create his minimalist pieces. Short anecdotal texts highlight the contradictions of the time and the big, little yearnings that keep people going. The scenes' action is always presented in abstraction while the emotion is contained only in popular songs, carefully selected by Hoghe according to subject matter and period. He formulates his memories so that the historic events are called to mind through subjective and purely private moments. His body, that due to his hump does not correspond with society's norms, holds a place for us all and our personal memories. He opens up spaces between things, words and songs for personal reminiscences and affective moments. They are moments for reflection but also for laughter.
- Gerald Siegmund-
