prelude A _ a Vorspiel | 2004

After Cobaye vs Cobaye (2003) C+H reevaluated their approach to making performances and the ritual of theater going more generally speaking. Rather than focus on the stage, they chose to divide the theatrical event into a before, during and after, giving the respective spaces - theater lobby, stage and bar, equal importance. This division and subsequent research led to the pieces Prelude A / A Vorspiel (before/theater foyer), Bühnenstück (during/ the stage) and Konspiration (after/the bar/café).


In Prelude A / A Vorspiel, the audience is invited to a performance that never takes place. The piece is systematically prevented from being shown due to several prearranged 'accidents' that occur just before the performance should start. The resulting situation and the way it is managed by the three performers constitutes the actual piece.

Far from being an end point, the deception provoked by the staged failures serves as a starting point for the unfolding of a dramaturgy of apparent emergency solutions and comical developments. Prelude A immerses its audience in very different situations that stretch the credibility of the audience. The waiting becomes an organized and choreographed activity, and with time the audience begins to suspect that this seemingly spontaneous 'performance' is in fact the 'prelude' referred to by the title, though this is never made explicit.

Prelude A was created especially for the arts center Nadine in Brussels in January 2004. In order to attract a more diverse public, invitations were sent out in the form of theater flyers but also appeared as a series of personal ads for blind dates in the newspaper and as stickers typically used for parties.

The piece was announced as a three-part event. Each night the audience was invited to return again the following day with the hint of new postponements but also new solutions to this recurring situation. A booklet was distributed to the public each evening describing the performance that never took place.


Presented as a trilogy, over the course of the three nights three very different 'situations' arose which inhibited the performance from taking place:

The first night a power failure occurred just before the start of the performance, plunging the audience and performers, as well as the entire art-center Nadine into total darkness. An improvised lighting was created with candles and eventually the stage became a bar as the audience was invited to have a drink while the power situation was dealt with.

The second night the audience and performers never made it into the theater as the key to the front door had gone missing locking everyone outside. The second evenings 'performance' therefore took place in the parking lot in front of Nadine where an seemingly improvised barbecue and warm blankets found nearby were offered to the waiting public.

The third night one of the three performers, Heike Langsdorf gets stuck in traffic on her way to the theater. The public waits for her arrival and is kept informed about her progress through the city through a series of telephone calls.


With Prelude A / A Vorspiel, C+H attempted to shift the performance from the stage to the lobby - from a more traditional performer-audience set-up to a more situationist approach.

After this work the trio went on to do some experiments in different locations in the city as a way to test the limits of everyday behavior in public spaces (see Berliner Performance). While these experiments remained research, they did eventually lead to Konspiration, where the audience is pre-informed about events that take place the following day in a public cafe. (see Konspiration)





concept :
C&H
performance :
Heike Langsdorf, Christophe Meierhans, Christoph Ragg
thanks to :
Danny van der Put, Antoine Desvigne, Sophie van Bruysegem
production :
Nadine
organisation :
frogs OS