posttheater

a multi-media performance about female pilots and the wind:

Beau Fort 10 is a multi-media performance in which Maren Strack reflects the dream of flying. In original and stunning ways her body merges with balloons, wings and propellers. All of these flying devices become projection screens for Hiroko Tanahashi's beautiful video images of sky diving. Inspired by the biographies of Amelia Earhart, a heroin of aviation in the 20s and 30s in the US, Max Schumacher's narrative takes the audience to long-distance flights around the world. Did these famous female pilots fly for fame - or did they need stardom to follow their addiction to the wind?
Maren Strack and post theater have found various ways to translate achievements of aviation technology to performance techniques on stage. Strack performs inside of a huge balloon － where she interacts with her real and a projected shadow that shows her turning into a propeller machine. The performer then moves with long sleeve-jets in a circle, translating the idea of air compression. The central stage object is a wind machine. Strack carries it, drives with it, and eventually flies withit through the performance space. Various balloons and other objects are filled with the air blown by the windmachine-propeller.
"Beau Fort 10“ explains the ambivalent relationship between wind and flying. Moderate winds were the force moved balloons － whereas the early propeller machines could only fly without any wind what so ever.
The piece does not so much present the beauty of flying but the beauty of the dream of flying. The media by Hiroko Tanahashi makes the live performer Maren Strack disappear and re-appear as a projected － performer. Tanahashi's video work blends live and pre-produced video projections and integratesdimensional objects as projections screens. Maren Strack’s movements and dance are both live and on video. Often enough,different realities overlap. Is the video following the performer or the other way round?

*"Beau Fort 10" is the third part of "6-8-10", a trilogy about trafic, technology and female pioneers.

[Short Video Documentation]