meet the residents mush-room - Needcompany
meet the residents mush-room - Needcompany
meet the residents mush-room - Needcompany
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MEET<br />
THE RESIDENTS<br />
MUSH-ROOM<br />
A <strong>Needcompany</strong> Production.<br />
Coproduction: PACT Zollverein (Essen), Internationales<br />
0<br />
Figuren<strong>the</strong>ater-Festival (Erlangen).<br />
With <strong>the</strong> support of <strong>the</strong> Flemish authorities.
GRACE ELLEN BARKEY & NEEDCOMPANY MEET THE RESIDENTS<br />
For her latest production, Grace Ellen Barkey will launch into an unprecedented clash with no less a<br />
partner than <strong>the</strong> American art collective The Residents. This iconic band has composed original music<br />
for <strong>the</strong> production. Their affinity is expressed in psychedelic atmospheres, mysteriousness and<br />
extreme imaginativeness.<br />
Here is what Grace Ellen Barkey has to say about her new production:<br />
“We are in a wood full of <strong>mush</strong><strong>room</strong>s. They will not be standing upright, but hanging upside-down. It<br />
is autumn. A hallucinogenic autumn of falling leaves, wind, rain and occasionally sun, to remind us of<br />
<strong>the</strong> beauty of decay. We immerse ourselves in melancholy, and in <strong>the</strong> end of things. But ultimately<br />
resistance against it wins. I am <strong>the</strong> fucking president of <strong>the</strong> movement against melancholia.”<br />
“Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage, against <strong>the</strong> dying of <strong>the</strong> light.”<br />
Dylan Thomas<br />
The Residents was set up in 1969 and even now is still labelled as an iconic avant-garde performancepop<br />
band. They make music about music. Because of <strong>the</strong> now-legendary disguises <strong>the</strong>y wear during<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir concerts, <strong>the</strong>y are one of <strong>the</strong> best-kept secrets in pop history.<br />
Cartoonist and animator Matt Groening wrote in 1979 ‘The True Story of The Residents. A Brief<br />
Summary of Known Facts, Top Secrets, Hazy Details, Veiled hints, and Blatant Lies’:<br />
“There is no true story of The Residents. You should know that right off. The secrets of The Residents will never<br />
be revealed by anyone but The Residents <strong>the</strong>mselves, and so far <strong>the</strong>y aren’t saying much. This report offers<br />
some insight into The Residents and <strong>the</strong>ir work, but <strong>the</strong>ir favorite breakfast cereals will remain a mystery. Part<br />
of what The Residents are about is camouflage, and any understanding of <strong>the</strong>m must take into account both<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir organized sounds and <strong>the</strong>ir organized silence. The best this report can do is note <strong>the</strong> various statements<br />
and point out <strong>the</strong> gaps. Our knowledge is still incomplete. Anything is possible.”<br />
Music occupies a central dramaturgical position in Grace Ellen Barkey’s work. In One (1992) she used<br />
John Cage’s piece One pierced moment whiter than <strong>the</strong> rest. The Sonic Youth EP Kill Yr. Idols was used<br />
in full in Chunking (2005) and Thomas Adès’ Asyla - Op. 17 was <strong>the</strong> soundtrack for The Porcelain<br />
Project (2007).<br />
The Residents are composing new music for Grace Ellen Barkey’s latest production. The music is<br />
being issued on a CD and sold in concert halls on The Residents’ international tour. It will also be on<br />
sale at <strong>the</strong>atre and festival performances of MUSH-ROOM and in <strong>the</strong> <strong>Needcompany</strong> and The<br />
Residents webshops. The official release date will be announced in January.<br />
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LEMM&BARKEY<br />
The constant collaboration with Lot Lemm is also crucial to Grace Ellen Barkey’s work. In 2004 it led<br />
to <strong>the</strong>ir setting up Lemm&Barkey. They put <strong>the</strong> visual aspect of <strong>the</strong> production to <strong>the</strong> fore. They<br />
redefine <strong>the</strong> medium of <strong>the</strong>atre on <strong>the</strong> basis of materials. The confrontation between various<br />
materials is fundamental to this. In Chunking <strong>the</strong>y used textiles: silk panels as against roughly knitted<br />
life-sized dolls. In The Porcelain Project, hundreds of fragile porcelain objects are contrasted with<br />
human skin. In This door is too small (for a bear) we see decorative, richly narrative wooden panels<br />
contrasting with bendy rubber washing machines. For MUSH-ROOM, <strong>the</strong> new creation,<br />
Lemm&Barkey have designed paper toadstools that will be hung upside down above <strong>the</strong> stage.<br />
© Phile Deprez<br />
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MUSH-ROOM<br />
GRACE ELLEN BARKEY & NEEDCOMPANY<br />
Opening night<br />
22 March 2013<br />
Visual concept<br />
Lemm&Barkey<br />
Choreographer<br />
Grace Ellen Barkey<br />
Music<br />
The Residents<br />
Created with & performed by<br />
Sung-Im Her, Yumiko Funaya, Benoît Gob,<br />
Maarten Seghers, Julien Faure, Mohamed Toukabri, Ca<strong>the</strong>rine Travelletti<br />
Production manager<br />
Luc Galle<br />
A <strong>Needcompany</strong> Production.<br />
Coproduction: PACT Zollverein (Essen), Internationales Figuren<strong>the</strong>ater-Festival (Erlangen).<br />
With <strong>the</strong> support of <strong>the</strong> Flemish authorities.<br />
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PERFORMANCE CALENDAR SEASON 2012-2013<br />
PACT Zollverein, Essen (D) 22, 23 March 2013<br />
Dansens Hus, Stockholm 4, 5 April 2013<br />
SPILL Festival, London 9 April 2013<br />
Kaai<strong>the</strong>ater Brussels 19, 20, 21 April 2013<br />
Internationales Figuren<strong>the</strong>ater-Festival, Erlangen May 2013<br />
Dubbelspel, STUK, Leuven 27, 28 May 2013<br />
Click here for <strong>the</strong> complete list<br />
© Phile Deprez<br />
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UNBIND YOUR MIND<br />
IMAGINATION IN THE WORK OF GRACE ELLEN BARKEY<br />
A performance by Grace Ellen Barkey takes you to a place – a world, a universe, a fantasy, a cosmos –<br />
where you are forced to use your imagination. A virtuoso explosion of images leads you into an<br />
illogical, nonexistent reality composed of absurd figures, animal-like human creatures, humanised<br />
clichés that cry out: ‘I’m alive’ and ‘where did my head go?’<br />
Grace Ellen Barkey creates elegant contemporary burlesques, packed with colourful tableaux vivants.<br />
Her productions have one important message: ‘unbind your mind’. She describes looking at her own<br />
work as follows: ‘It’s like poetry: it slips through your fingers like sand; you can’t keep hold of it’.<br />
INSANE, SURREALISTIC AND ABSURD IMAGES<br />
Absurdity, that which is in conflict with reason and logic, is at <strong>the</strong> heart of Barkey’s work. As Frank<br />
Zappa said ‘Absurdity is <strong>the</strong> only reality’, and this applies to Grace Ellen’s Barkey’s work too. A bear<br />
that opens a launderette, or King George III wanting to teach birds to sing: <strong>the</strong>se absurd ideas<br />
provide <strong>the</strong> basis for a stage production. What do you ultimately see on stage? A launderette gone<br />
mad, with dancing washing machines, figures who have lost <strong>the</strong>ir heads and are looking for <strong>the</strong>m, a<br />
man with a loaf on his head, a mouse and a bear drinking tea…<br />
Her work is grotesque, and especially This door is too small (for a bear) (2010). The word ‘grotesque’<br />
originates from <strong>the</strong> Italian ‘grottesca’, which was <strong>the</strong> name of <strong>the</strong> ornamentation found in <strong>the</strong> vaults<br />
of Roman buildings in <strong>the</strong> 16 th century. Grotesque is also applied to whimsical, fantastic figures,<br />
whorls that incorporate human and animal forms, curious and fanciful in shape, making a peculiar<br />
and sometimes ludicrous impression by <strong>the</strong>ir strange combinations, extravagant.<br />
Here is what Grace Ellen Barkey has to say about her new production:<br />
“In my productions, <strong>the</strong> debate on matter or emotion, on real or surreal, on form or content goes<br />
back and forth or, ra<strong>the</strong>r, round and round: performers are deprived of <strong>the</strong>ir humanity, <strong>the</strong>ir bodies<br />
take on grotesque forms and becomes matter, emotion grows so huge that it becomes still, an image<br />
in itself, and <strong>the</strong>n ends up in <strong>the</strong> intimacy and clumsiness characteristic of humanity.<br />
(Dance-) <strong>the</strong>atre is ultimately about watching and <strong>the</strong> spectator can decide for himself whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong>y<br />
are tears or rain and wind.”<br />
Grace cites <strong>the</strong> Dutch writer and poet J. Bernlef:<br />
“They are not tears, it’s rain and wind.”<br />
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OVERVIEW OF PERFORMANCES BY GRACE ELLEN BARKEY<br />
1992 One<br />
first night: 26 November 1992, Theater am Turm Probebühne, Frankfurt<br />
1993 Don Quijote<br />
1995 Tres<br />
first night: 28 October 1993, Theater am Turm, Frankfurt<br />
first night: 18 October 1995, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam<br />
1997 Stories (histoires/verhalen)<br />
first night: 19 February 1997, Brigittinenkapel, Brussels<br />
1998 Rood Red Rouge<br />
first night: 5 October 1998, STUK, Leuven<br />
1999 The Miraculous Mandarin<br />
first night: October 1999, PS 122, New York<br />
2000 Few Things<br />
2002 (AND)<br />
first night: 7 October 2000, BIT teatergarasjen, Bergen (Norway)<br />
first night: 23 October 2002, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam<br />
2005 Chunking<br />
first night: 12 May 2005, PACT Zollverein, Essen (Germany)<br />
2007 The Porcelain Project<br />
first night: 10 October 2007, Kaai<strong>the</strong>ater, Brussels<br />
2010 This door is too small (for a bear)<br />
first night: 25 February 2010, Kaai<strong>the</strong>ater, Brussels<br />
2013 MUSH-ROOM<br />
first night: 22 March 2013, PACT Zollverein, Essen (Germany)<br />
Click here for <strong>the</strong> complete list<br />
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BIOGRAPHIES<br />
NEEDCOMPANY<br />
<strong>Needcompany</strong> is an artists’ company set up by <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>atre-maker and Jan Lauwers and <strong>the</strong><br />
choreographer Grace Ellen Barkey in 1986. They form <strong>the</strong> core of <strong>the</strong> company, and it embraces all<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir artistic work: <strong>the</strong>atre, dance, performance, visual art, writing, etc. Their creations are shown at<br />
<strong>the</strong> most prominent venues and abroad.<br />
LEMM&BARKEY<br />
In 2004 Grace Ellen Barkey & Lot Lemm set up Lemm&Barkey to give shape to <strong>the</strong>ir close artistic<br />
cooperation: <strong>the</strong>y designed <strong>the</strong> costumes for Isabella’s Room (2004) and were responsible for <strong>the</strong><br />
concept, set and costumes for Chunking, The Porcelain Project and This door is too small (for a bear).<br />
In 2007 <strong>the</strong>y created a porcelain installation for <strong>the</strong> production The Porcelain Project. It has been<br />
shown at several museums including BOZAR (Brussels) and <strong>the</strong> Benaki Museum (A<strong>the</strong>ns). The curator<br />
Luk Lambrecht <strong>the</strong>n invited <strong>the</strong>m to take part in <strong>the</strong> group exhibition I am your private dancer (2008)<br />
at Strombeek cultural centre, <strong>the</strong>y created works for <strong>the</strong> group exhibition Het spel van de waanzin,<br />
over gekte in film en <strong>the</strong>ater (2008) at <strong>the</strong> Dr Guislain Museum (Ghent) and were invited to take part<br />
in <strong>the</strong> ‘contemporary ceramics’ section of <strong>the</strong> Down to Earth (2009) exhibition by its curator Hugo<br />
Meert.<br />
The curator Pieter T’Jonck has invited Lemm&Barkey to put toge<strong>the</strong>r an exhibition on <strong>the</strong>ir last three<br />
productions: Chunking (2005), The Porcelain Project (2007) and This door is too small (for a bear)<br />
(2009) for <strong>the</strong> Modemuseum in Hasselt in 2012. It will be part of <strong>the</strong> third Hasselt Triennale /<br />
Superbodies: an art project for contemporary art, fashion and design. For this <strong>the</strong>y made 18 video<br />
works entitled The Ontology of a Series of Images, in which images are constructed and<br />
deconstructed almost in passing. Human figures become forms, matter becomes a part of <strong>the</strong> body,<br />
hesitation becomes eroticism.<br />
Lemm&Barkey © Phile Deprez<br />
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THE RESIDENTS<br />
The Residents have been regarded as icons in <strong>the</strong> world of experimental music for nearly forty years.<br />
In addition to <strong>the</strong>ir groundbreaking work in <strong>the</strong> areas of trance, world fusion, electronica, punk,<br />
industrial and lounge music, <strong>the</strong> group has also been credited with being among <strong>the</strong> originators of<br />
performance art and music video. Two of <strong>the</strong>ir videos are in <strong>the</strong> permanent collection of <strong>the</strong><br />
Museum of Modern Art and <strong>the</strong>ir Freak Show CD-Rom has recently been featured in MOMA’s<br />
“Looking at Music 3.0” exhibition.<br />
Their four decade long career has also taken <strong>the</strong>m into <strong>the</strong> world of film and television music, having<br />
scored several episodes of <strong>the</strong> PEE WEE HERMAN SHOW, HUNTERS (for <strong>the</strong> Discovery Channel), THE<br />
CENSUS TAKER (1985), HEAVEN (1987), CONCEIVING ADA (1997), CONDO PAINTING (1997), THOMAS<br />
PYNCHON - A JOURNEY INTO THE MIND (2001), INVESTIGATION INTO THE INVISIBLE WORLD (2002)<br />
and STRANGE CULTURE (2007) as well as several projects for MTV.<br />
Having already released ten DVDs, and a 60 episode internet series, The Residents are also thriving in<br />
<strong>the</strong> world of digital media. In addition, <strong>the</strong>y have recently completed a 70 date world tour, titled The<br />
Talking Light, from January, 2010 - April 2011.<br />
© The Cryptic Corporation<br />
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GRACE ELLEN BARKEY<br />
Grace Ellen Barkey, born in Surabaya in Indonesia, studied dance expression and modern dance at<br />
<strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>atre school in Amsterdam and afterwards worked as an actress and dancer. Before cofounding<br />
<strong>Needcompany</strong> in 1986 and becoming its full-time choreographer, she had choreographed<br />
several o<strong>the</strong>r productions. She created <strong>the</strong> choreography for Need to Know (1987), ça va (1989),<br />
Julius Caesar (1990), Invictos (1991), Antonius und Kleopatra (1992) and Orfeo (1993). She also acted<br />
in several of <strong>the</strong>se productions, as well as in The Snakesong Trilogy - Snakesong/Le Voyeur (1994),<br />
Caligula (1997), <strong>Needcompany</strong>’s King Lear (2000), Images of Affection (2002), No Comment (2003),<br />
The Lobster Shop (2006), The Deer House (2008), The art of entertainment (2011), Marketplace 76<br />
(2012), Needlapb and The House of Our Fa<strong>the</strong>rs. She was one of <strong>the</strong> cast of Goldfish Game (2002), Jan<br />
Lauwers & <strong>Needcompany</strong>’s first full-length film. For Isabella’s Room (2004) she joined forces with Lot<br />
Lemm to create <strong>the</strong> costumes under <strong>the</strong> name Lemm&Barkey.<br />
Since 1992 she has been steadily and successfully building an international career with her own stage<br />
creations. Her first pieces, One (1992), Don Quijote (1993) and Tres (1995) were coproduced by<br />
Theater Am Turm in Frankfurt. These were followed by <strong>the</strong> <strong>Needcompany</strong> productions Stories<br />
(Histoires/Verhalen) (1996), Rood Red Rouge (1998) and Few Things (2003). Few Things was received<br />
very enthusiastically both at home and abroad. With (AND) (2002) she transcends all <strong>the</strong> boundaries<br />
of <strong>the</strong>atre, dance and music with an irresistible flair. In 2005 Grace Ellen Barkey presented her new<br />
stage show, Chunking and was nominated for <strong>the</strong> Flemish Community Culture Prizes (2005). For The<br />
Porcelain Project (2007) she created a porcelain installation toge<strong>the</strong>r with Lot Lemm. In 2010 she<br />
made <strong>the</strong> production This door is too small (for a bear). MUSH-ROOM (2013) is her latest production.<br />
LOT LEMM<br />
Lot Lemm has worked at <strong>Needcompany</strong> since 1993. She initially started as costume designer on<br />
various productions including Le Voyeur (1994), Le Pouvoir (1995), <strong>Needcompany</strong>’s Macbeth (1996),<br />
Le Désir (1996), Caligula (1997), The Snakesong Trilogy (1998), Morning Song (1999), <strong>Needcompany</strong>’s<br />
King Lear (2000), Images of Affection (2002), Goldfish Game (feature film, 2002), No Comment<br />
(2003), Isabella’s Room (2004), The Lobster Shop (2006), The Deer House (2008), The art of<br />
entertainment (2011), Marketplace 76 (2012), all by Jan Lauwers, and All is Vanity (2006) with<br />
Viviane De Muynck. When it comes to Grace Ellen Barkey’s productions, her involvement increases<br />
with each one. She started as a costume designer on Tres (1995), Stories (1997), Rood Red Rouge<br />
(1998) and (AND) (2002). On <strong>the</strong> productions Few Things (2002), Chunking (2005), The Porcelain<br />
Project (2007), This door is too small (for a bear) (2010) and MUSH-ROOM (working title) (2013) she<br />
also defines <strong>the</strong> stage setting.<br />
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PERFORMERS<br />
www.needcompany.org/NL/cv/sung-im-her<br />
www.needcompany.org/NL/cv/yumiko-funaya<br />
www.needcompany.org/NL/cv/benoit-gob<br />
www.needcompany.org/NL/cv/maarten-seghers<br />
www.needcompany.org/NL/cv/julien-faure<br />
www.needcompany.org/NL/cv/mohamed-toukabri<br />
www.needcompany.org/NL/cv/ca<strong>the</strong>rine-travelletti<br />
© Phile Deprez<br />
10
-<br />
Hooikaai 35<br />
B-1000 Brussels<br />
tel +32 2 218 40 75<br />
fax +32 2 218 23 17<br />
www.needcompany.org<br />
info@needcompany.org<br />
Artistic director/ Jan Lauwers<br />
Executive director / Yannick Roman: yannick@needcompany.org<br />
Artistic coordination / Elke Janssens: elke@needcompany.org<br />
General manager / Eva Blaute: eva@needcompany.org<br />
Financial director / Sarah Eyckerman: sarah@needcompany.org<br />
Production manager / Luc Galle: luc@needcompany.org<br />
Production & communication / Laura Smolders : laura@needcompany.org<br />
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