About the event
Premiere: 2009 @Hebbel Am Ufer, Berlin
Stages: 3
Duration: 1hr 10min.
Casts：6（M2/F4）
Since its premiere in 2004, Air Conditioner has been performed in seven cities across the United States and during UOVO Festival in Milan in 2008. In Italy, it was applauded for its style, which, according to one review, “not only merges the two disciplines of dance and theater, but also consumes all the potential methods of both, which enables it to stand above them in the end.” “The thoughtless, mechanic discourses―that never become veritable dialogues―and the compulsive gestures,” the review continued, “allude to an empty society, and to difficult human relationships.” In 2009, Air Conditioner was expanded as a part of 70-minute piece titled Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech and premiered at Hebbel Am Ufer, Berlin.
Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech
This performance consists of three short parts, Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and the Farewell Speech. Set in an office, the plot revolves around a female temp staff who is soon to be dismissed as a result of the current recession. In a nutshell, it is a contemporary drama about temporary workers. In “Hot Pepper,” temporary employees consult a widely-circulated coupon magazine called “Hot Pepper” to find a suitable restaurant for a farewell party of their colleague Erika, who has been informed that her contract will be soon terminated. “Air Conditioner” enacts a conversation between two regular workers―a male and a female who do not share the temp staff’s anxiety Erika’s firing has caused. During the entire scene, the woman complains about the air-conditioning in their office being set too low, while the man expresses his sympathy for his co-worker. “Farewell Speech” dramatizes Erika’s last words spoken 5 minutes before the end of work on the very last day of her contract. The speech is given in front of all the staff gathered around her.
By approaching the disciplines of dance and theater from various angles, chelfitsch,has always created its performances and developed methodologies through trial and error. This piece is not an exception. To take one of its sections as an example, in “Air Conditioner”―staged originally in 2004, Okada has sought to represent a tension or a gap between two different kinds of physicality: gestures as acting on one hand; physical movements that transpire in response to the background music on the other. Okada repeats a similar kind of experiment in the newly added two sections, but in different ways from the one he explored in “Air Conditioner.”
