SOPHIE DUNCAN ROLE:

Additional Choreography, Dancer, Stunts, Vocalist, Pole Artist and Aerialist

Direction, Choreography and Performance: Florentina Holzinger
Performance von und mit/Performance by and with: Andrea Baker (Klementia), Annina Machaz, Blathin Eckhardt, Born in Flamez, Cornelia Zink (Susanna), Emma Rothmann (Alte Nonne), Evilyn Frantic, Fibi Eyewalker, Florentina Holzinger,  Gibrana Cervantes, Jasko Fide, Fleshpiece, Luz De Luna Duran, Malin Nilsson, Netti Nüganen, otay:onii, Paige A. Flash, Renée Copraij, Saioa Alvarez Ruiz, Sara Lancerio, Sophie Duncan, Veronica Thompson, Xana Novais

Sängerinnen des Opernchores des Mecklenburgischen Staatstheaters und Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin

Musikalische Leitung/Musical Direction: Marit Strindlund

Komposition und Arrangement/Composition and Arrangement: Johanna Doderer

Komposition und Supervision Bühnenmusik/Composition and Supervision Stage Music: Born in Flamez
Komposition und Sound Design/Composition and Sound Design: Stefan Schneider
Komponistin und Produzentin/Composer and Producer: Nadine Neven Raihani
Komposition und Arrangement Gibrana Cervantes, Josephinex Ashley Hansis, Karl-Johan Ankarblom, Odette T. Waller, otay:onii

Bühnenmusik/Stage Music: Blathin Eckhardt, Gibrana Cervantes, otay:onii, Paige A. Flash, Born in Flamez

CO-PRODUCTION

A production by Florentina Holzinger/Spirit, neon lobster, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater and Staatsoper Stuttgart in co-production with Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin in cooperation with Komische Oper Berlin, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Julidans and Theater Rotterdam

Based on Paul Hindemith’s 1922 short work Sancta Susanna – in which a nun confronts the violent punishment of sexual self-determination – Florentina Holzinger’s SANCTA bridges Bach and Rachmaninoff with metal, noise and contemporary compositions to reclaim the gore of Catholic mass and address the violent history of the Church. Countering the religious discipline and punishment of (female*) sexuality – abortion, homosexuality, sex work, pleasure – SANCTA stages sexual sensations and practices as a pathway to not-only-religious ecstasy.

2025

Theater Treffen @ Volksbuhne, Berlin

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Staatsoper Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

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2024

Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater, Schwerin, Germany ;

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Museum Quatier Wien

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Volksbhune Am Rosa-Luxemburg Platz, Berlin, Germany

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Staatsoper Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

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SOPHIE DUNCAN ROLE

Dancer, Aerial Pole Soloist, Harness, Vocalist

Melody Alia, Saioa Alvarez Ruiz, Inga Busch, Renée Copraij, Sophie Duncan, Fibi Eyewalker, Paige A. Flash, Florentina Holzinger, Annina Machaz, Xana Novais, Netti Nüganen, Babett Niclas, Urška Preis, Zora Schemm, Rebecca Sickmüller

And: 

Adele Brinkmeier, Stella Adriana Bergmann, Liv Bohse, Greta Grip, Golda Kaden, Fiene Lydia Kaever, Izzy (Isadora) Kleiner, Elin Nordin, Lea Schünemann, Rosa Shaw, Lenya Tewes, Thea Wagenknecht, Laila Yoalli Waschke, Zoë Willens

Concept & Directing: 

Florentina Holzinger

Sounddesign: 

Stefan Schneider

Music: 

Paige A. Flash, Urška Preis, Stefan Schneider

Stage Design: 

Nikola Knežević

Lighting Design: 

Anne Meeussen

Video Design: 

Melody Alia, Jens Crull, Max Heesen

Live Camera: 

Melody Alia

Live Editing: 

Max Heesen

Dramaturgy: 

Renée Copraij, Sara Ostertag, Fernando Belfiore, Michele Rizzo

Dramaturgy Volksbühne: 

Johanna Kobusch

Technical Lead: 

Stephan Werner

Production Management: 

Moira Garee

Technical Assistance: 

Jan Havers, Dörte Wilfrorth

Stage Assistance: 

Camilla Smolders

Production Management: 

Katharina Wallisch, Stephan Werner

Tour Management: 

Moira Garee

Management & International Distribution: neon lobster – Katharina Wallisch & Giulia Messia

A production by Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz and Spirit, co-produced by Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, Tanzquartier Wien, Arsenic Lausanne, asphalt Festival, Gessnerallee Zürich, Kampnagel Internationales Sommerfestival and DE SINGEL Antwerpen.

With funding by Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien and Bundeskanzleramt für Kunst und Kultur.

Pour water on thyself: thus shalt thou be a fountain to the universe. (Kenneth Anger)

In the twilight of the ‘Age of Aquarius’, there’s a shift away from technological innovation towards humanitarian concerns and collective responsibilities, and the narratives of Ophelia’s heiresses have inevitably resurfaced to float like a carpet of algae above the depths and abysses they at once cover.

The wet terrain the stage has turned into provides the training ground for working out how to become like Ophelia – embodying the laws operative in this special environment and satisfying fantasies and desires of others are elements in an ambivalent game which Ophelia masters brilliantly. The narratives of her ancestors, Leda, Melusine, Undine, nymphs, nereids and sirens, have left a distinctive mark on contemporary biographies. Excellent dancers as they are, they love music and like to lure us into the water dragging us to the lower depths to make us look into the mirror of Venus. Yet the true place of their significance remains untold, it has drowned and sunk to the ground. It is only in the process of decomposition that the bodies float to the surface of the water, adrift unless they’re recovered, or mouldering away to finally become one with nature.

Water is the element of assimilation and adaptation, a symbol of the boundless capacity to expand, of an eternal, inseparable unity with the outside world. Iconographically, water has been associated with womanhood – and with death: a figure standing next to a quiet pond is a cipher for the domestication of female subjectivity; whitecaps on the sea’s surface stand for the result of her disintegration and disengagement; a mermaid’s fishtail is a metaphor for denied female sexuality. An oceanic landscape arises, full of allusions, cultural and historical references to all manner of water creatures and drowned strangers, a scenario that not only asks whether training and physical exercise can help us escape the precarious circumstances of the present with climate catastrophes and other disasters looming. It also invites speculations on future life forms that will have assimilated these conditions, transformed them and created new forms of being.

Fluctuation, reflection, reproduction, healing, and violence – these are the central themes of the new show by Florentina Holzinger and her multi-disciplinary, multi-generational company, which is a physical study in the psychology of water in the 21st century.

Note

We recommend a minimum age of 18 to attend the performance.

Triggerwarning

Please note: The show Ophelia’s Got Talent contains

• self-injurious acts

• blood

• needles

• strobe lights

• explicit depiction or description of physical or sexual violence

Volksbuhne, Berlin

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