HIER und JETZT und HIMMELBLAU

Have you ever been to Paris and seen a revue in the Moulin Rouge or Lido?
The atmosphere before the start of the performance is as dense and fascinating as the revue itself: velvet curtains shimmer in the auditorium, a band provides live music, waitresses pouring champagne swarm under sparkling chandeliers, distinguished ushers allocate seats, photogra- phers more or less discreetly offer their services. The actual event before the event – the revue – is the arriving crowd of guests, consisting of tourist groups, business professionals, families, hen parties, unequal pairs of lovers, the twosome and lonesome... Different people of different ages gather to see a revue, here and now.

Revues are loose sequences of numbers. Dance and song are mixed with acrobatics, clownery and impressive choreographies, with plenty of glitter and glamour. There is no plot, the numbers are only loosely connected to each other, usually by a theme that stands above everything and to which the exotic costumes and scenes can be associated.

The eclectic, which is inherent in the principle of revue, is reflected in every crowd of spectators, in every theatre: Each individual carries a life with (and within) themselves, consisting of memo- ries, of what has been read, experienced, learned and forgotten... a very own secret „life revue“, which connects in the here and now of a coincidentally simultaneous theatre visit with all the other spectators to a further, even bigger revue.

At the beginning of our revue we look into the auditorium of a fictitious revue theatre in a city, far, far away from here: The Grand Plaisir. While the spectators take their seats in the State Operetta to watch the revue HERE AND NOW AND SKY BLUE, an audience also takes their seats on the stage to see a revue in the Grand Plaisir. Waiters rush about and champagne is served until a usher stops time and leads us into and through the world of the thoughts of the people who are waiting here and now for the performance to begin. We see their thoughts, listen to songs that tell of their feelings, get a brief insight into a strange inner world that could also be ours.

With HERE AND NOW AND SKY BLUE I imagine a revue for the invocation of equality, actual unity, of the collected commonalities: A colorful narrative that simply reminds us that despite all our differences of experience, origin, way of life, opinions and views within, we are all people who share the same feelings – love and sorrow, despair and joy, addiction and longing, fulfillment and desire, loneliness, fear and happiness and: Hope.