Chez Icke

Gesine Danckwart (DE)

EINE BAR ALS PERFORMANCE UND FESTIVALZENTRUM

Commissioned work

“Chez Icke” is a bar and a festival center, always simultaneously on the Rhein and the Ruhr – here the Impulse cities encounter one another both in reality and in virtual space, broadcast live and interactive. “Chez Icke” is performance and installation and simply just drinking and talking and dancing, that place where everybody comes together, as much as that’s possible, if you aren’t too busy dealing with yourself. That’s why there’s high-tech between the cities and the hearts and Patrick Wengenroth and Matze Kloppe make music on the homeland. And the director and writer Gesine Danckwart and her team are the hosts, imitating German bigwigs and talking with the Impulse artists about their works. And you can take part in these discussions, and afterwards the artists who had just made art will DJ. Drink culture and avatars, real-time dialogue with the world and the partner bar.

“Chez Icke” is always exactly what you need. Tonight we are in Cologne and you are in Mülheim or the other way around, and there is theater everywhere, or something that is taken for theater. But here and there and you and we are at the bar, and it’s a “Chez Icke” (“Chez Me”) bar, the navel of the world. And that’s us afterwards and during and maybe even beforehand, and then beforehand is already the next night, and the next question and the next part of a series, whose beginning and end we aren’t familiar with, yet again, but would be happy to get to know. And the bartenders are always sexy and in the know, and artists are hanging around in front, behind, and under the bar, and we don’t ask what this country can do for you, but what you can do for “Chez Icke.” And that’s the center of Germany, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for, but maybe thought from below, and at night we see the same stars while we listen to the same music. And avatars cuddle, but they are always controlled from the exactly always other world city. And in Cologne there’s always that faint smell of beer and “Chez Icke” is Dance and Let’s Dance and Mülheim is Chez never be alone and park and night music. “Chez Icke” is a bar and a festival center, always simultaneously on the Rhine and the Ruhr – here the Impulse cities encounter one another both in reality and in virtual space, broadcast live and interactive.“Chez Icke” is performance and installation and simply just drinking and talking and dancing, that place where everybody comes together, as much as that’s possible, if you aren’t too busy dealing with yourself. That’s why there’s high-tech between the cities and the hearts and Patrick Wengenroth and Matze Kloppe make music on the homeland. And the director and writer Gesine Danckwart and her team are the hosts, imitating German bigwigs and talking with the Impulse artists about their works. And you can take part in these discussions, and afterwards the artists who had just made art will DJ. Drink culture and avatars, real-time dialogue with the world and the partner bar.

And then one small eternity of a festival is over and the next one starts, which is how it often is in this life, and we’re not entirely, but pretty much somewhere else: the “Chez Icke” is in Düsseldorf and Bochum, and in Bochum we’re outside at the border between Schauspielhaus and city, and no, this isn’t Occupy and all that, but “Chez Icke” and that could also be you, ladies and gentlemen, or can we go on a first name basis, and all of Bochum will be beer counter Nr. One, and new artists are hanging out under, in front of, and on top of the counter and our questions have gotten cleverer, but we’re still in the middle of this series that will never end and the nights are getting longer and maybe it’s good that way, because in Düsseldorf there’s “Chez Icke” Club and that can’t go long enough, and then the middle of this series is already kind of a middle at the margins, we’ve gotten away from something, the gaze is still coming from below. And the avatars have a love story, of course they perform it for someone else, and we’re getting our first regulars, but they’re virtual, and the tone of the discourse gets really bitter when we ask if what you’re doing is important and relevant, is it political and engaged or what could YOU do for “Chez Icke,” if you don’t want to do anything for your country, whatever that might be, and then it gets nice and pleasant again in Chez.

Always open before the performances and from 09:30pm Chez Icke program:
With Gesine Danckwart, Bettina Grahs, Anne von Keller, Max/Marcus Reinhardt, Bettina Scheuritzel and others in the bar series “What could you do for Chez Icke?”, furthermore theater artists of the festival, DJs, guests.

Köln
studiobühneköln
27 June, from 09:00 PM
28 June, from 06:00 PM
29 June, from 05:00 PM

Mülheim a. d. Ruhr
Ringlokschuppen
28 June, from 06:00 PM
29 June, from 05:00 PM
30 June, from 05:00 PM

Düsseldorf
Salon des Amateurs
04 July, from 06:00 PM
05 July, from 05:00 PM
06 July, from 05:00 PM

Bochum
Schauspielhaus Bochum
04 July, from 06:00 PM
05 July, from 05:00 PM
06 July, from 05:00 PM

and live on the web
www.chez-icke.com

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