What Are You Hungry For? Colonialism meets TikTok on the Stage of Volksbühne

photos: Frank R. Schröder. 

The latest dance theater piece The Hunger by Costanza Macras and her company Dorky Park has taken Berlin by storm – and rightly so. This brilliant spectacle not only impresses with a unique cast, but also combines two themes on stage that are more topical than ever: Colonialism and the commodification of the self in the digital world. What follows is an animated review.

For a long time, the internet world, with all its visual and narrative phenomena, and the world of contemporary theater seemed to exist in two parallel universes. However, with the online world now omnipresent in our everyday lives, one of the remaining strongholds of German culture – the German director’s theater – is also beginning to rethink how it wants to position itself in relation to digital trends. Many approaches in this debate are intellectually and technologically special, but they often lack humor or tend towards a strongly technology-pessimistic narrative style.

Refreshingly, but not surprisingly, different is Costanza Macras’ approach to digital trends. Already in her last work, Drama at the Volksbühne, TikTok choreographies went hand in hand with contemporary dance moves. Now, in The Hunger, she is going full-frontal and breaking down the wall of the digital sphere. The piece guides the audience through a series of random associations, making the hunger less self-explanatory than many of her previous works. You sometimes catch glimpses of what the piece is about, but most of the time, you’ll feel confused. What does a marriage proposal have to do with a story about a ship arriving in the “New World”? What do fitness TikToks have to do with a group orgy?

 

 

 

Cannibalism vs. Colonialism in the Digital Sphere

 

The plot behind The Hunger is based on an Argentine book from the ’80s, The Witness by Juan José Saer. The main story is deeply dark: A ship’s crew of Spanish conquistadors lands in South America at the beginning of the 16th century and is captured by an indigenous tribe. The tribe overpowers them and starts eating the entire crew in orgiastic festivities. Only one Spaniard survives and, as a foreign witness, documents the customs and the cannibalistic and erotic goings-on among the natives.

This plot only occasionally surfaces during the show—like a distant relative who appears at Christmas. As you take a deeper plunge into The Hunger, you realize that Macras has translated the experience of scrolling through your phone to the theater stage. And in doing so, the audience is invited to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The cannibalistic nature of capitalism, in which we are currently living, is the result of centuries of unchecked colonialism. And while there are no more new analog territories to conquer, tech companies are now conquering the vast lands of our time, attention, and emotions. You and your data have become flesh for them to feed on, and before you know it, you’ll be spit out like a clean bone.

Yet, through these dark thoughts, Macras and her company Dorky Park always guide the audience with humorous and powerful choreographies. While the entire crew is exceptional, two of the main storytellers, Steph Quinci and Anne Ratte-Polle, really stand out with their iconic monologues.

 

 

Fucked by Capitalism – That’s hot!

 

Ultimately, the most consistent feeling that remains after the two-hour-long play is how the digital sphere, which once promised to revolutionize humanity, keeps being a reproduction of what humans ultimately always do: a tool to eat you alive or fuck you over.

Have you ever questioned why the algorithm is showing you a baby reindeer playing with a fox, followed by a video of a sex worker advertising her OnlyFans account? This random feeling is now available at the Volksbühne with The Hunger, and you should definitely dive in.

For more information about The Hunger, visit the website of Dorky Park.

 

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<a href="https://www.iheartberlin.de/author/cr/" target="_self">Claudio</a>

Claudio

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