Archive 2013 This edition is closed and no longer updated.

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  • vote for “9 Leben” / “9 lives”


    Looked at objectively one single life is really quite exciting. Sometimes it’s spectacularly colourful, for long periods adventurously risky and quite often wickedly dangerous. Whichever way you choose to look at it life is rarely boring. As a rule all of us have our hands full trying to deal with our personal challenges. So when the “Junges Ensemble Stuttgart” confronts us with a piece of dance theatre showing “9 Lives” all at the same time, we would be quite justified in calling this a somewhat audacious enterprise.

    To be precise this swiftly moving, precisely constructed collage directed by Brigitte Dethier and Ives Thuwis-De Leeuw is more about 10 lives. Nine young male amateurs and one actress talk about their lives, their yearnings, their everyday struggles as they grow older, and the tensions arising from their encounters with other people. All the participants have put a lot of biographical and personal details into the venture which has brought them together onto a common ground, the stage. 

    When the nine youths on stage talk about their attitudes to life in a fragmentary fashion, question their own identity and set out in search of the next step in their lives, this results in an extraordinarily powerful and rousing show somewhere between performance, dance and acting, which is relevant to people of all ages. “9 Lives” poses some very astute questions about the role we play in our own life, about responsibility and freedom. The production dares to take a hopeful view of all the challenges which will confront us in the future. 

    Bernd Mand