The concert hall of the Munich Philharmonic is completely deserted. 2389 seats are empty, as empty as the stage. A whistle shrills through the cool air. Suddenly a ghostly creature moves in block P and a bright shadow scurries through the rows of block G. Another whistle sounds, immediately afterwards someone jumps over one of the red plush armchairs in Block J, in Block M a figure crawls across a corridor, someone falls, a body hits hard somewhere. Shrieking whistles sound again, and the dancers run, climb and balance up to the top ranks. It is two women and four men who cross the concert hall like in a parkour run. From below the organ, where the few dozen visitors wearing masks are seated, it is easy to follow the action, and the acoustics are also good.
After 36 years in which the impressively asymmetrical hall in Europe's largest cultural center was the venue for concerts by the Munich Philharmonic, the Gasteig is now being closed for general renovation.
The young Munich choreographer Moritz Ostruschnjak performed the world premiere of “Yester: Now” in the holy Celibidache halls and their famous poor acoustics for the last time before they closed.
Ostruschnjak borrows the basic mood and title from “an expressive and aggressive” track by jazz icon Miles Davis and translates it into the digital and virtual “real life” flood of our present: full of icons and political opinion (s), protest culture and perfect world show smile, full of appearance and imitation of reality.
Nothing is what it seems
Its seventy-minute premiere begins at the end: the six athletic conquerors of the auditorium crash into walls, naked, powerless and breathless. Ostruschnjak's principles are called “Pick & Mix” and “Cut & Paste”. By no means arbitrarily arranged, but correspondingly wild are the short, incoherently choreographed scenes, each celebrating or satirizing a - not only contemporary - dance style. Ostruschnjak samples everyday movements, such as hand signals from Victory to Merkel diamond, and covers them with hashtags or slogans. The dancers Dhélé Agbetou, Guido Badalamenti, Daniel Conant, Quindell Orton, Roberto Provenzano and Magdalena Agata Wójcik wear black and white sportswear and are cool and self-confident.
But nothing is what it seems: sometimes it's a faded pop anthem, sometimes a video, often it's also the idiosyncratic, winking gestures and the many hand-painted protest signs that are used to expose the lies behind the mass media truth. It is also very effective how the six protagonists to the ironic feel-good quote from the Broadway evergreen "A Chorus Line" with their clubs demonstrate the entertainment and perfection of every dance norm, demonstratively, smiling and with a loud bang.
The freelance choreographer Ostruschnjak, born in 1982, comes from the sprayer scene and was a breakdancer before studying dance at Iwanson International in Munich and at Maurice Béjart's “Mudra” school in Lausanne. His many talents, as reflected in his latest piece, which was premiered as part of the “Tanzwerkstatt Europa”, allow him and his rousing, energetic ensemble a veritable showcase of dance trends and talents, an exhibition of strength, stamina, speed and acrobatics, play, Joke, and singing.
Whether in hip-hop, breakdance, popping, contemporary, tap dance, cheerleading, pulsating rave or boiling boxing match - every new dance round of “Yester: Now” is both an expression of and an answer to the retreat into the deceptively private, which has intensified through and despite Corona Public of the World Wide Web as “a modern ghost story”. Literally on the flip side of beloved comic heroes from the Disney dream workshop, a cut shows their gruesome suicide attempts; the downside of technical achievements is reflected in military air shows or absurd dictatorial choreographies; the downside of icons of practiced charity fizzles out in image media name dropping (video: Moritz Stumm).
At times the sea of signs with its images and messages of peace and fear and fighter fist, Aldi Süd and Adidas, from “Welcome cheap workers”, “We are the good ones” and “Cancel the Apocalypse” is so provocative that the air in the great hall burns. With “Yester: Now” Moritz Ostruschnjak takes a very original, critical artistic position. He really has something to say and he knows how to turn it into pictures. Action!