Jenny Gand

JEDERMANN REMIXED

SHORT DOCUMENTARY & PERFORMANCE | 2018

Dancing & theatre performance with elderly people and its making of

The workshop began with movement and dance exercises and progressed into text work. By handling out a note book we asked questions of the participants, to be written down, regarding aspects/ subjects, of the current productions, offered at the Burgtheatre. These specific questions were referenced to current productions, by content, such as nature/ garden, Arche of Noah and environmental catastrophes or were referenced to the play jedermann (stirbt)" ("Anyone dies") by Ferdinand Schmalz, which is a new version of the famous play "Jedermann" by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Our motivation for asking these questions, where to activate triggers, to stimulate the participants, memories.

The questions opposed to them where. "Did you have a garden in your former life?" “Can you recall what it looked like? What kind of animals and plants/ flowers were living or growing there?" and "If you have to build an arche, of what kind of wood would it be built?"
From their answers and parts of the "jedermann (stirbt)"- text I created a version for a short dance & theatre performance. These interactions where filmed, step by step. I also added interviews to the footage that where shot and in the end, the whole performance came to life within the film.

Making of photos by Jenny Gand & Reinhard Werner/ Burgtheater © 2018