HARTMANNMUELLER dedicate their new production to the space between nature and society. To retrace the strange networks that cover the earth today, they set up a laboratory in a staged space, a laboratory in which wild buds flourish. Because one thing is certain: The world in its hitherto existing categories no longer functions and it is time to question human self-conception as the crown of creation: Is humanity the result or antagonist of creation? Are we part of creation while we aim to rise above it as builders and destroyers?

The production casts light and shadow on narratives circling on nature and it awakens our recollections of childhood as an origin story. Instead of proven positions, HARTMANNMUELLER let fluid narratives flow, narratives in which they bathe destructive ideologies, soften them and in the best of cases, purge them. Are they explorers, participants in a test trial, onlookers or gods in all this?

A production by HARTMANNMUELLER, co-produced by tanzhaus nrw. Funded by Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes NRW, NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste, Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf and Kunststiftung NRW.

Website tanzhaus nrw

Does creation fit into a laboratory? HARTMANNMUELLER try to reconcile the forces of nature in their installation. Are they researchers, test subjects, spectators or gods? Between complex and equally graceful experimental set-ups made of glass, Simon Hartmann and Daniel Ernesto Mueller tell parts of the creation story and recite film quotes from the 1990s and 2000s. With their artistic construction, playful storytelling and choreography, they create a space for “The Creation” outside our destructive view of the world. At the same time, they are searching for a new self-understanding of human beings that uninhibitedly holds up a mirror to us: Are we creating or destroying?

Based on the stage play “The Creation”, co-conceived by Annette Müller.

A production by HARTMANNMUELLER, co-produced by the City of Viersen, funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, supported by PACT Zollverein, Essen.

Website PACT Zollverein