Hello to Emptiness

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German choreographer and director Stephanie Thiersch meets Parvathy Baul and the Indian Baul tradition for cross-cultural choreographic concert on rituals of mourning and longing: As one of the most versatile and innovative in the field in Europe, the transdisciplinary dance artist and her international company MOUVOIR collaborate with the Goethe-Institut India to create a third version of the choreographic concert HELLO TO EMPTIMESS - The Indian Chapter.

HELLO TO EMPTINESS is a performative reflection on social vulnerability and on how we deal with grief. Based on the Greek moiroloi (μοιρολόγια, engl. “speech about fate”), Stephanie Thiersch and eight outstanding dancers and singers develop a poetic space in which ancient laments and traditional rituals are revived and transferred into new contexts. How have climate change, species extinction and ongoing wars shaped our form of lamenting and mourning? How has the pandemic changed the way we look at and think about loss? What value do we, as a community, ascribe to life and what spaces do we create to mourn for this life?

The multi-faceted cast includes, next to Indian singer Parvathy Baul, singer and musician Mariana Sadovska, dancer and countertenor Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola, dancer and countertenor Julien Ferranti, dancer, singer and musician Manon Parent along with Riya Mandal and Joshua Sailo dancers from India. The team sets out in search of the lost knowledge of rituals of longing and mourning. A “choir” comments on the chants and images, connecting darkness with light.

Coming from different cultural realms the outstanding artist personalities on stage combine songs and rites from the Balkans and Europe with the Baul tradition and other Indian song and dance repertoire to create an evening that traces the intimacy and, at the same time, the communal and unifying nature of the laments.