Figurentheater Wilde & Vogel + Christoph Bochdansky + COV Compagnie Off Verticality (DE/AT)

Inviting, brisk, grinning, playing music and dancing grotesquely, this is how Death is shown as a skeleton in the medieval Danse Macabre. Opposite of him – the human being: wondering, hesitating, persisting in a gesture. Many variations of the Danse Macabre have since formed the artistic examination of human beings with Death, but in the end all concepts ultimately reflect the incomprehensibility of this moment: their own encounter with death.

Artists from different genres, cultures and generations are sharing their concepts, fears and strategies to live with the certainty of death. In a merry-go-round of pictures, movements, words and sounds, the recurrent moment of dying is played through in different modes: “mysterious”, “maestoso”, “in soft tones”, “melancholic”, “excited, frivolous, swinging” are the performing instructions.

And … in the end we can witness an immortality: bawdy Punch and longing-to-die Pierrot show us how death can be outwitted.

The internationally successful puppet theatre company Wilde & Vogel was founded in 1997 by the puppeteer Michael Vogel and the musician Charlotte Wilde in Stuttgart. In 2003, Wilde & Vogel founded the international production centre for Figurentheater, Westflügel Leipzig. This year they are also guests at the festival with the piece “Staub – Dust – אבק”, a co-production with Golden Delicious.