A site-specific performance by Erik Pold
“Man plays only when he is in the full sense of the word a man, and he is only wholly Man when he is playing.”
Friedrich Schiller, 1795.
Imagine watching a public square in the middle of Copenhagen through a window, observing the everyday actions of its inhabitants, out on a shopping stroll, or on their way to meet somebody for a coffee, or catching a train for work. A very real situation in a very real place, we don’t normally stop to observe.
What if you were able to tune into peoples thoughts, if you were able to go below the surface of this everyday existence? What are people busy with in their heads, do they think the way you imagine?
Now imagine this everyday situation turned into a play, a performance, an aesthetic game. In The Reality Game performance artist Erik Pold and a group of 3 performers are out to play a game with the city and its inhabitants.
Audiences are seated on a tribune in a large display window, either the display of a shop or a café directly facing a square or pedestrian street/area. The large windows are covered with a theatrical curtain, to create a theatrical context. The performance starts in front of this curtain, and then moves out into the public space behind the window. Where the Talk Show involves the people who happen to be there.
The German playwright and philosopher Friedrich Schiller’s notion of the aesthetic game is put to the test in a contemporary urban setting.
A knight in shining armour goes out with a microphone to test the condition of democracy. Erik Pold’s reality game is info-tainment in a good way.
(4 star review by Monna Dithmer in Danish newspaper Politiken)
(4 star review by Monna Dithmer in Danish newspaper Politiken)
Price: First performance: 2500 € + travel, accomodation and per diems.
Following performances: 1500 € per show.
Performers:
Danish cast: Merete Byrial, Erik Pold, Johannes Lilleøre and Pernille Koch.
German cast: Merete Byrial, Erik Pold, Jens Atzorn and Isabelle Höpfner.
Composer and sound designer: Pelle Skovmand
Dramaturgy: Mette Wolf Iversen, Lars Bo Løfgreen og Jan-Phillipp Possman
Photographer: Malle Madsen
The Reality Game is a Co-production between LiminalDK, The Metropolis festival in Copenhagen and the Schillertage festival in Mannheim, supported financially by the Danish Arts Council Committee for the Performing Arts.
Duration: 50 min.
Location: Busy public square or pedestrian area. Audience seated in a Shopping window or Café facing the square.
Contact: www.erikpold.dk / info@erikpold.dk / +45 26830726
