BESSER WERDEN! | Ballhaus Ost
© Promo
A late capitalist advisory cantata
for success fanatics and a depressive choir
The coaching industry is thriving – at huge events or exclusive retreats, in online seminars, countless podcasts and thousands of YouTube tutorials, we can learn to become “the best version of ourselves” – the successful version.
With »BESSER WERDEN!,« Felix Stachelhaus and team explore the neoliberal promise of social ascent, obsessive self-optimization and omnipresent performance pressure of an affluent society. Five musicians from Berlin new music ensemble LUX:NM, singer Lisa Florentine Schmalz and a cappella choir DooDooBa! / Richardchor Neukölln invite you to a unique counseling event. Merging motivational training, contemporary musical theater and comedy, BESSER WERDEN! moves between absurd humor and deep seriousness and poses the question of what success really is, why we strive for constant improvement and what happiness actually means.
Felix Stachelhaus is a freelance composer, director and percussionist. He conceives, composes and stages productions between performative concert, post-dramatic theater, multimedia performance and cabaret.
With
Voice, performance
Lisa Florentine Schmalz
Ensemble LUX:NM:
Silke Lange (Akkordeon)
Florian Juncker (Posaune)
Ruth Velten (Saxophon)
Rike Huy (Trompete)
Zoé Cartier (Cello)
Martin Offik (Klangregie)
Richardchor Neukölln
(Direction: Paul Pathenheimer)
By
Concept, composition, direction
Felix Stachelhaus
Conceptual collaboration, dramaturgy
Frederike Prick-Hoffmann
Stage, video
Christopher Dippert
Light design
Sönke Christian Herm
Costumes
Hanne Lenze-Lauch, Johanna Winkler
Production management
Gregory Popov
PR
Hark Empen
A production by Felix Stachelhaus and team in cooperation with the LICHTHOF Theater, Ballhaus Ost and the resonanzraum.
Supported by the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media, the Musikfonds e.V. with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Claussen Simon Foundation, the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung and the Ilse and Dr. Horst Rusch Foundation.
The Ensemble LUX:NM is supported by the Senate Department for Culture, Berlin.
The event is part of the Month of Contemporary Music Berlin organized by initiative neue musik e.V. / field notes berlin.