Robust powerlessness: Performative reading for dance and theatre
Performative reading for dance and theatre based on the "SCHACHNOVELLE" by Stefan Zweig
The chess novella by Stefan Zweig, published in Brazil in 1942, is a classic of exile literature during the National Socialist era. On a ship passage from New York to Buenos Aires, a former prisoner of the Gestapo, whose only activity in solitary confinement was a chess book, is challenged to a game and confronted with the memories of his imprisonment.
The Freiberg choreographer Martina Morasso and her team take up the text. Reading and dance come together in the staged reading at the ZeHS of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg.
An exploration of powerlessness in isolation and yet the desire for (survival).
"There was nothing to do, nothing to hear, nothing to see, everywhere and uninterruptedly there was nothingness around you[...]You walked up and down, and your thoughts went up and down with you,[...], again and again. But even thoughts, as insubstantial as they seem, need a base, otherwise they begin to rotate[...]You waited for something, from morning till night, and nothing happened[...]You remained alone. Alone. Alone."
Project initiative, choreography/dance: Martina Morasso
Actor/reader: Maximilian Sterba
Dramaturgical support: Ellen Henning
A project as part of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025. Supported by the city of Freiberg.
Martina Morasso works as a freelance choreographer, performer and dance teacher in Freiberg, Chemnitz and Dresden. She dances at the Leipzig Opera and with Tanzwerkstatt Cottbus G. Grunske. She studied theatre studies at the University of Genoa, choreography at the Palucca University of Dance Dresden and stage dance at the Cologne Ballet Academy. From 1994 to 2012, she danced on various German stages, including the Komische Oper Berlin.
Since 2017, she has been a speaker on the subject of "cognitive choreography", including at the "Movement and Cognition" congress at Oxford University (2017) and the "Senseation" symposium at the HdK University of the Arts Zurich (2019).
The encounter with Maximilan Sterba has existed since their time together at the Mittelsächsisches Theater Freiberg and continues as a mutual artistic and human appreciation.
