PAULINE JACOB ›PRÄCHTIGER VOGEL LEIERSCHWANZ‹

Pauline Jacob ›Prächtiger Vogel Leierschwanz‹

Pauline Jacob ›Prächtiger Vogel Leierschwanz‹

Pauline Jacob ›Prächtiger Vogel Leierschwanz‹

Pauline Jacob ›Prächtiger Vogel Leierschwanz‹

© Isabel Machado Rios

MON 05/24 8.00 P.M. VIDEO STREAM
ON DEMAND til FRI 05/27
MUSIC THEATER

Duration: 50 minutes
Language: German
+ Q&A (via Zoom) at 9.15 P.M.
+ audio introduction ›Anleitung für Daheimgebliebene‹ on demand from 6 P.M.

There is a bird in the Australian outback that not only drives members of its own species crazy with its singing—ornithologists also lose their cool, and on YouTube the bird has long become a star. This Orpheus among birds copies and samples whatever he hears, turning chainsaw noise and nightingale tunes into his own beguiling courtship songs. But like his mythological relative Orpheus, the lyrebird also needs the silent hen, Eurydice, as the muse of his art. 

In her music theater solo, the opera singer Pauline Jacob explores how she, as a hen, can free herself from the status of a muse and sing in an empowering way. To do so, she combines feminist positions with scientific contemplations, Gluck with Beyoncé, and electronic music with opera playback. ›Prächtiger Vogel Leierschwanz‹ is a collage-like evening between grand opera and intimate audio piece performed live. Pauline Jacob raises questions as to the topicality of the ›high-cultural‹ tradition of singing and makes us aware of the distribution mechanisms of attention and visibility. Does Eurydice really have to be louder, or does Orpheus simply have to start listening?

Pauline Jacob works as a singer, performer and musical theater-maker in the fringe areas of music theater. Her focus is on testing new forms and the artistic empowerment of singers (read as female) on stage. One the one hand, she appears as an actress on stage (at Junge Deutsche Oper Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Neuköllner Oper Berlin, Schauspiel Hannover, Staatsoper Stuttgart), one the other, she creates independent works with artists from other disciplines, including the performances ›Vier freundinnenschaftliche Duette‹ and ›Prächtiger Vogel Leierschwanz‹ or the radio plays ›Ansprache an ein Außen‹ (DLF Kultur) and ›Pamelas Potentiale‹ (WDR). Pauline Jacob studied classical singing at the HfMT Hamburg until 2014, and alongside her artistic work, she is currently doing her master’s in applied theater studies in Gießen.

Audio introduction:
Pauline Jacob & Benjamin van Bebber
›Anleitung für Daheimgebliebene‹
Audio piece on demand

Duration 14 minutes
Language: German

The audio piece ›Anleitung für Daheimgebliebene‹ created for the Performing Arts Festival Berlin 2020 is a digital-artistic variant of the performance ›Prächtiger Vogel Leierschwanz‹. The piece for voice starts as an audiophile relaxation tutorial and gets increasingly entangled in an intimate monolog: on how our distanced bodies can connect across all lockdown loneliness through listening and how we can allow ourselves to take a break from all the impositions of a hyper-accelerated image culture. So lie down, perk up your ears and listen to how silence speaks to you! Is that your breath or mine?