Nicoleta Esinencu
SINFONIE DES FORTSCHRITTS
Picking cucumbers, delivering packages, cleaning bloody abattoirs – three performers tell of people from Eastern Europe working in the West under degrading conditions. Repurposed jigsaws and cordless drills create the carpet of sound for this spoken concert.
FFT Düsseldorf
Language: Moldovan Romanian, Russian and English with German and English surtitles
16.6. after the show: Exchange of experiences at the bar
Two Moldovan students have repurposed their tools as musical instruments. They hope they will soon find jobs abroad. This frames the performance: in between beeps, creaks and sounds of the spheres, it focusses on the lie of progress, which is supposed to create social justice, prosperity and a good life for all, but in truth constantly produces new forms of exploitation and control.
The performers tell stories such as that of the Eastern European student who delivers packages for Amazon in Düsseldorf – for 10,50 Euro per hour gross and with the dispatcher on his back, phoning to tell him he is 20 stops behind. Who hardly has time to eat or go to the toilet. They tell of people whose work is essential to maintaining the comfort zone of the West – but who get mistreated and abused for doing it.
These reports from the world of work alternate with exercises that blame society’s problem on the individual; “Be your best self,” the performer murmurs from the stage. “It’s your choice: piss in a bottle or piss yourself.” This is the new freedom – for the Amazon driver and for many others. ‘SINFONIE DES FORTSCHRITTS’ dissects Western double standards in a cutting and humorous manner.
“Painfully good.”
Doris Meierhenrich, Berliner Zeitung, 16.1.2022
Credits ›
By: Nicoleta Esinencu, teatru-spălătorie
Performers: Nicoleta Esinencu, Artiom Zavadovsky, Doriana Talmazan, Kira Semionov, Nora Dorogan, Oana Cirpanu
Technical Development: Iulian Lungu, Neonil Rosça
Technician: Sergiu Iachimov
Production Managers: Jana Penz
Artistic Consultant: Aenne Quiñones
Technical Direction HAU: Annette Becker
Sound HAU: Janis Klinkhammer
Lighting HAU: Lea Schneidermann
Translation Moldovan Romanian to German: Eva Ruth Wemme
Translation Moldovan Romanian to English: Artiom Zavadovsky
Translation Russian to German: Yvonne Griesel
Translation Russian to English: Artiom Zavadovsky
Production ›
A production by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin and teatru-spălătorie. A co-production by FFT Düsseldorf, HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden, Theater Rampe, Stuttgart, Festival Theaterformen, Hanover. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the Alliance of International Production Houses.
Biography ›
Nicoleta Esinencu lives and works as a writer and director in Chișinău, in the Republic of Moldova. Her radical plays are performed internationally. In 2010 she co-founded the alternative political artistic space teatru-spălătorie in Chișinău. Since the theatre’s enforced closure in 2017, the women’s collective teatru-spălătorie continues its work without its own venue.