HUMAN BEING AND ART FIGURE
IN A DOME THEATRE

Year & Cooperation

2020

In cooperation with the Planetarium Bochum

Production Text

A dream comes true: 100 years after the Bauhaus — in the Planetarium Bochum.

In the 1920s, artists at the Bauhaus designed theatre spaces that remained utopian at the time. Andor Weininger sketched a spherical theatre. Oskar Schlemmer simultaneously developed a comprehensive new vision of the human being. Both visions — the “dome theatre” and the compendium “The Human Being” — waited a century for their theatrical realisation: the technology was missing, the spaces were never built.

A hundred years later, the situation looks different. The Planetarium Bochum — opened in 1964, equipped with a Zeiss projector Model IX “Universarium”, eleven projectors and 64 individually controllable loudspeakers — offers precisely the space these utopias demanded. THEATER DER KLÄNGE seized this opportunity: a performance that brings together Weininger’s dome theatre and Schlemmer’s vision of the human figure in transformed form — as a live full-dome spectacle with dance, electronic music in immersive spatial audio and videographic projections across the entire dome.

With Das mechanische Ballett, Die mechanische Exzentrik, TRIAS and Das Lackballett, THEATER DER KLÄNGE has already demonstrated its ability to realise Bauhaus theatre ideas in sensory and contemporary form. Now these visions — 100 years on — become a living experience for today’s audiences inside the Planetarium.

„form und farbe, raum, bewegung, sprache und ton, idee und komposition.” — Oskar Schlemmer, „unterrichtsgebiet: der mensch”, Bauhaus Dessau 1928

The Project

The Planetarium Bochum specifically acquired a new stage for the production: a circular walkway around the star projector, with an elevated dance platform behind it. Instead of spotlights on trusses: lights integrated into the walls, barely visible. Above the dancers, full-dome projections filled the dome — capturing the performers live on camera and transforming them into moving graphic projections, which were repeatedly blended with Schlemmer’s sketches, from which the choreography had been developed.

Funded by the State of NRW, the City of Düsseldorf, NPN (Neustart #steppingout), Fonds Darstellende Künste (#takecare), Stiftung van Meeteren, Förderverein Klangtheater e.V. and the Landesbüro freie darstellende Künste NRW.