"Holzinger, 38, is known for freewheeling performances that blur the line between dance theatre and vaudeville. Her all-female cast typically performs partially or fully naked, and previous shows have included live sword-swallowing, tattooing, masturbation and action paintings with blood and fresh excrement.
“Good technique in dance to me is not just someone who can do a perfect tendu, but also someone who can urinate on cue,” Holzinger told the Guardian in an interview earlier this year."
That’s hilarious
German art at its finest!
action paintings with blood and fresh excitement.
Why is it always goddamn Germany?
If the artists can live out their bloody fantasies in the safety of an opera house, they might not take over the country and commit genocide, again.
Um… you might want to re-read that. It’s not as uh… “exciting” as you might think.
Quick search. Yeah, the naked nuns rollerskating down a half-pipe is real.
And no, will not be posting links, you pervs.
The Aristocrats!
this is a fascinating article with lots to pick out, and i did like this quote in particular.
“long list of warnings for potential triggers including incense, loud noises, explicit sexual acts and sexual violence.”
hope you’ve steeled yourself to witness intense on-stage fucking, plus sometimes they light incense!
You ready for that?!
Having a warning for that is incredibly important, mostly in cases where people may be allergic or have sensitivity to certain smells. Incense is not something you would expect at a theater performance, so if I went to a showing without that warning, I wouldn’t know to take my allergy meds and may have walked out of there with a migraine or needing my inhaler, depending on what kind of incense they used.
If I had a sensitivity to smells I think I’d probably avoid shows known for people masturbating on stage
Fair, but people have sensitivity and allergy to different things. Adding it to an existing list of potential deal breakers for those who would rather not risk their health is a case of cost/benefit: it costs nothing and benefits many.
If you’re allergic or have sensitivity to smells, don’t go to the experimental explosive fuck theater.
If you’re sensitive enough to incense on stage or in theater that it critically physically disrupts your body, it must be difficult for you to even walk down the street alongside traffic fumes.
That’s too bad, and it means you don’t get to do literally everything; you are too sensitive for some things like extreme art pieces or hindu religious festivals.
You’re sensitive and have limitations. you can’t fight fires, and if you are truly critically physiologically sensitive to incense, must carry that responsibility around with you rather than expecting every person who uses incense to issue a public trigger warning.
We should not start ear-tagging domestic pets with informational placards for having dander or stapling trees with signs warning you against eating their leaves.
Don’t eat their leaves.
trigger warnings are tolerable in certain settings(academia), and in rarer cases have a valid purpose I can get behind(warning labels, employment contracts), but they can quickly become unnecessarily burdensome, and trigger warnings for incidental appearance of incense in live experimental art shows by radical artists can fuck off.
…You are aware of how both allergies and air quality works, right? Also, most shows even in art houses don’t include scent effects of any kind, hence the warning. If it were common, the warning would likely be unnecessary.
But lovely of you to claim I am the oversensitive one, as apparently adding a single word to an already existing warning, one that could literally save someone’s life by preventing a physical ailment, is too much for you to handle reading!
trigger warnings are not “too much for me”, they are simply largely unnecessary.
anybody who wants to put out a trigger warning, good for them.
anybody who doesn’t want to put out a trigger warning, good for them.
I can deal with all of that except the shit. Please, not the shit.
Huh…I have so much to learn.
“Good technique in dance to me is not just someone who can do a perfect tendu, but also someone who can urinate on cue,”
Take it to 11 and eat some shrooms before
The main image in the article is amazing. Two people making out in front of nuns and a robot. Looks like a blast.
The whole production sounds pretty edgey.
And, as usual, those opera tickets are taxpayer-subsidised with €200-300 per ticket. That is the normal going rate for opera houses in Germany. The guests only pay €20-50.
Worst case of opera subsidies in Germany will be Cologne - they are currently renovating the opera house. It should have been finished ten years ago for 250M€, now they hope to finish renovating next year, for a whopping total of 1.5B€. All paid for by the tax payer. Which, if distributed over 30 years means that each ticket is taxpayer-subsidised with €300-400 just for the cost of the renovation of the house.
So what you’re saying is, such renovations obviously could only take place with government tax dollars, since as a private enterprise there’s no way they could make it work? And this relatively small amount of spending in the grand scheme of the tax system helps keep the local arts flourishing?
Sounds like the tax system is working!
Edit: forgot to add, it also supports the construction workers, restoration workers, the places of business where materials were sourced, pumps money into the local economy, and preserves the buildings as cultural landmarks.
But what if that money goes to art I don’t personally like?
Oh no no, don’t worry. Your pennies only paid for the art you like, other people paid for that weird stuff. That’s the best part of money, once you throw it all in a pile Scrooge McDuck style, it all looks the same!
That a private enterprise wouldn’t be able to make this work should give us a hint that it doesn’t benefit enough people for it to be worthwhile, opera is a luxury good consumed by relatively few, relatively affluent people. Why should the taxpayer subsidize their hobby? Actors don’t need a billion dollar opera house to perform, they could do it in a school auditorium if necessary. Those tax dollars could have been spent on any number of other things like healthcare and education.
When the tickets are only €25 it’s not just for the rich. The opera house is a cultural landmark, preserving it serves the public. And it was 1.5B spread over several years, not all at once.
Honestly, the ‘money on art bad’ argument is not a good line here.
Making it cheaper doesn’t change people’s taste, it’s still mostly for the rich, now they’re just getting a subsidy they didn’t need from the taxpayer. If people want to spend their money on art that’s perfectly fine, what I’m objecting to is the taxpayer being obligated to do so.
And this relatively small amount of spending
This money is not provided by the federal government, or even the state. It is paid for by the city of Cologne.
1.5B€ is quite a burden on the finances of a city. Even if it is a large city. All for the benefit of a small elite, as normal people don’t watch operas.
The cost was spread over several years. And at 25€ a ticket this doesn’t just serve the elite. The building is also a cultural landmark, so preserving it is of social interest, and the money spent went straight back into the local economy, where it was swiftly taxed again.
These arguments are lazy, find better ones.
And at 25€ a ticket this doesn’t just serve the elite.
Have you ever seen the people who go into the opera?
The cost was spread over several years.
Yes, if you would spread it over 30 years, it would still be €300-400 per ticket.
Find better excuses for wasting taxpayers money on a handful of peoples entertainment.
Have you ever seen the people who go into the opera?
When cheap tickets are available: everyone. Artistic expression is human nature, commodification is repression.
