Hundeplatz
#dogsport #dogdance #bitch #dogsofberlin
Like any other relationship, the partnership between human and dog is a bit of work: a daily improvisation of commitment, letting go again, creating intimacy and drawing boundaries. Hendrik Quast and performance artist Maika Knoblich developed Cross-Cruising ©, a training to work on communication in a relationship. The artist duo meets three dog owners and their partners on the adventurous and confusing parkour of unconditional love. The professed aim of the exercise is to strengthen their human-canine bond. It is questionable whether this can run smoothly. In the course of the training, they constantly test and transgress boundaries: What does the other need? What do they expect from each other? Who leads? Who is the dog and who is the human? This space for dogs in the theatre allows to reflect on difficulties, absurdities and perversions of relationships between humans and dogs, or between humans in general.
Video
Password: Wauwau
Concept, text, performance Hendrik Quast, Maika Knoblich
Dog owners Ayline Hrymon, Katrin Schmidt, Carolin Zeidler
Dogs Coda, Cooni, Feivel, Lilly, Michl, Spike
Music Les Trucs – Charlotte Simon, Toben Piel
Costumes Christina Neuss
PR, production Björn Pätz, Björn Frers
Dramaturgy Marcus Droß
Co-production SOPHIENSAELE, Quast & Knoblich
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds
Fotos © Florian Krauss
Dog entertainment - a good approach to probing our time.
Berliner Zeitung, 23 March 2018, Doris Meierhenrich
Man's best friends show what they can. (…) At the end, a puppy is brought into the world, played by a screaming man. Not a bad idea.
Neues Deutschland, 23 March 2018, LucÌa Tirado
It is easy to dismiss "Human–canine bonding" as a decadent game where human needs are projected onto dogs and the animals are overloaded, overwhelmed and "socialised". However, the transfer of the subculture of dog trainers and dogs into the theater rather allows to create a fascinating space to test communicative practices and scenarios of wish-fulfillment. The work develops its appeal through interweaving human and animal behaviors. The animal becomes a social being. It fulfills the roles, conditioned with food. When the conditioning, the training, hits the wall, the challenge begins for the performers. With the new dog sport discipline Cross-Cruising, the artists define a parkour of discipline and submission, as well as exchange of emotions and resonance between living beings.
taz, 21 March 2018, Tom Mustroph