MMany people grew up hearing stories about mermaids, sirens and the Rhine nymph Loreley. The performance artist Florentine Holzinger has now opted for the Berlin Volksbühne dealt with such legendary figures – and created a visually stunning spectacle. For “Ophelia’s Got Talent” a pool of water was embedded in the stage floor and two aquariums set up for the dancers to swim in.
Holzinger is from Austria and works with naked female ensembles. Their strong bodies perform a number of stunts. The “New York Times» just wrote about Holzinger, she pushes performers to the extreme – and the audience too. For example, in one scene, two women pierce their cheeks with fish hooks.
Warning against sexualised violence
Holzinger’s production begins with a talent show hosted by Captain Hook. Before entering the auditorium, a trigger warning hangs on the wall. It warns against blood, needles, self-harm, strobe lights and descriptions of physical and sexual violence.
In the course of around two and a half hours, an ejaculating helicopter appears, swords and a camera are swallowed, Franz Schubert’s “The Trout” and the story of Leda from Greek mythology are discussed, it’s about rape and anorexia, self-love and the longing for self-destruction.
“Who sees through all the cheap theater tricks?”
According to the announcement of the piece, femininity has often been associated iconographically with water. «And with death: standing by the waveless pond it is synonymous with the domestication of female subjectivity, foam on the sea the result of her dissolution, a fishtail the image of her denied sexuality.»
Holzinger’s work was also announced as a “physical study on the psychology of water in the 21st century”. A somewhat pompous title, which doesn’t make a visit to the theater any less interesting. The evening consists of several episodes: sometimes a sailor’s song, sometimes – one could read it like this – criticism of the destruction of nature. “Who sees through all the cheap theater tricks?” It says at one point. “We,” shout the girls who are also on the stage.