Production Details / Press Releases
“Operation Orpheus” is Vocal Voodoo. An anachronistic aria. A drama that loops itself through history, dissecting the organs of cultural memory and the body of an opera.
“Operation Orpheus” is a ritual in which the ancestors of European theater history are evoked. Cultural heritage gets incorporated and transforms in order to finally overcome it.
“Operation Orpheus” explores the materiality of the early romantic aria “Che farò senza Euridice” in relation to silent gestural semiotics from romantic ballet. “Che farò senza Euridice” by C.W. Gluck is taken from the opera “Orfeo ed Euridice” and premiered in 1762.
“Operation Orpheus” takes references that are quite outside contemporary taste and re-works them in a contemporary way. Body conventions are remixed, sampled and deprived of their authority.
In the performance, classical gestures are synchronized with the lyrics of the aria. They point towards the romantic period, when gestures were the mute language of dancers. Only through this system of gestural semiotics could dance emancipate itself from its role as light divertissement and establish the status of a sovereign form of art. Classical ballet and classical singing, two different languages that have competed for a long time in the hierarchy of western theatre tradition, meet here in one body.
The project is called “Operation Orpheus” precisely because it is about dissecting the aria’s body, having a look at the pieces and placing them back together again. The fragmentation of the aria breaks down the sublime, rendering the details of the work more clear and casting off the overtones of sadness and longing that are otherwise inherent to the songs’ narrative. Chanting becomes partitioned into words, melody, narration, emotion and gesture that slow down, speed up, leave gaps, get stuck and flow again.
The choreography handles visual and sonic material separately, leaving them inorganically disconnected, like when editing a film. The body no longer represents itself as organic or truthful, but becomes a complex being that cannot be identical with itself.
Jule Flierl works on vocal dances that deal with connecting and disconnecting the voice from the moving body. She also researches different conventions of representation and the relationship between performance and audience. Most recently, her work has been shown in Berlin at Tanztage 2016 and the Performing Arts Festival Berlin. She studied contemporary dance at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), and in 2015, she finished her Masters in Choreography at EXERCE Montpellier.
Cast & Credits
Concept, choreography, performance: Jule Flierl
Production management: David Eckelmann
Costume: Dorothée Henon
Supported by: Exerce Montpellier, LaPanacée Montpellier, Kunsthaus KuLe Berlin
Thanks to: Adaline Anobile, Sorour Darabi, Julie Gouju, Anne Kerzerho, Loic Touzé, Zoë Knights
Tanznacht Berlin 2016
Artistic director: Silke Bake
Production management: Barbara Greiner
Tech: Andreas Harder
Assistance production: Lars Hecker, Anne Bickert
A production by Tanzfabrik Berlin.
Supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
With kind support of apap-advancing performing arts project/performing europe 2020 – co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union, Institut Français, Instituto Cervantes. In cooperation with Uferstudios Gesellschaft, HAU Hebbel am Ufer/Tanz im August.
Further partners: Ètape Danse, internationale tanzmesse NRW
Tanzfabrik Berlin / Wedding
Uferstr. 23
13357 Berlin
Video Documentation
The video documentation is produced on behalf of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. The purpose of this contract is to document productions in the field of contemporary dance in Berlin. The master recordings are archived by the University Library of the Berlin University of Arts. Copies of the recordings on DVD are available for viewing exclusively in the reference collections of the following archives (at media desks in these institutions):
University Library of the Berlin University of Arts
Mediathek für Tanz und Theater des Internationalen Theaterinstituts / Mime Centrum Berlin
Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT)
Jule Flierl / Trailers and Video Documentations
- Jule Flierl: Interview / Portrait Jule Flierl (2019)
- Jule Flierl: Time out of Joint (2023)
- Jule Flierl: Die Hörposaune (2022)
- Jule Flierl: U.F.O. (2021)
- Jule Flierl: WISMUT – A NUCLEAR CHOIR (2019)
- Jule Flierl: Störlaut (2018)
- Jule Flierl: A SOUND HAS NO LEGS TO STAND ON (2016)
- Jule Flierl: KÖRPERRUIN 2 – Meta, Meta, Meta für Meter (2014)
- Jule Flierl: Happiness is a war…m gun 3 (2011)