Zitadelle Spandau 23.5– 29.5. 2019
UNRUHIG BLEIBEN/STAYING WITH THE TROUBLE Inspired by the writing of Donna Haraway
The excess population of human beings is taken on shocking dimensions – is it time to rethink things? Inspired by Donna Haraway, Unruhig bleiben/Staying with the Trouble invites the audience to experience a collective, speculative fabulation about five generations of a symbiogenetic connection between humanity and monarch butterflies.
Five life stories between 2025 and 2425 make up this attempt to redesign the art of living together on a damaged planet.
Anne Duk Hee Jordan created for this play a set full of acting critters and a video wall bringing in the story of Camille and her symbionts: a kaleidoscope of metamorphosis between amphibians, bacteria, cannibalism, climate change, compost, landscapes, mushrooms and mating insects.
I was asked by Anne together with Pauline, to design the scenic elements for the video projections and to create the video content to be projected on.
I propose as the projection surface, a curtain made of a special material that absorbs the video projection and allows to be walked through, so that both actors and audience can interact with.
Staying with the Trouble is a stage and media scenography developed for Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s performance at Zitadelle Spandau, inspired by Donna Haraway’s reflections on symbiosis, multispecies coexistence and collective responsibility on a damaged planet.
The performance unfolds as a speculative narrative spanning five generations, imagining future forms of living together through a symbiogenetic relationship between humans and monarch butterflies. Scenic elements and video projections support this dramaturgical structure, creating an immersive environment in which biological processes, social imaginaries and ecological transformation intersect.
For this project, I designed the spatial elements for the video projections and developed the projected content. As projection surface, a walk-through curtain made of a special absorbent material was introduced, allowing both performers and audience to physically interact with the moving image. The curtain functions simultaneously as architectural threshold, projection surface and performative interface.
Stage design and media are conceived as a unified spatial system, where bodies, projections and scenographic elements continuously influence one another. The project explores theatre as an experimental space for ecological imagination, translating Haraway’s concept of “staying with the trouble” into an embodied scenographic experience.
Dramaturgy: Carlos Manuel
Concept and Artworks: Anne Duk Hee Jordan
Stage Design & Video Projections: Simone Serlenga
Visual research: Pauline Doutreluingne
Sound: Neda Sanai
Technical engineer: Andreas Marckscheffel
Assistant: Michelle Se Yoon
Venue: Zitadelle Spandau
Funded by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa
