Der Ur-Forst

Hendrik Quast & Maika Knoblich

The German forest isn’t yet out of the woods. Even if acid rain is merely an anecdote from the 1980ies, the trees are still vegetating and they don’t recover. We owe them a better environment: Therefore, Hendrik Quast & Maika Knoblich cut down a sick German oak in the forest of Mülheim and erect it again in the safe art space of the open air stage in front of the Ringlokschuppen.
The pedunculate oak, in 1989 the first “Tree of the Year” in Germany, is honored with a gala at the end of the Impulse Theater Festival – festively supported by a choir and the skilled chainsaws of a professional carving club. But how does the oak cope with being uprooted and separated from the forest? Is art the space where nature will survive in the end? While the foresters erect the oak precisely fitting and screwing it together – by every trick in the book and in line with all safety regulations – Quast & Knoblich comment on the theatrical happening and look for answers to such questions.
In their few works so far, the two artists already developed a unique language and a very distinct form of theater, which they celebrate in “Der Ur-Forst” for over six hours: A durational performance that begins in the afternoon and ends after midnight. It is an invitation to immerse oneself for hours, step by, come back and then stay the whole time without having planned to do so.

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