A site-specific music theatre Direction and dramaturgical concept
Sponsored by the German Federal Cultural Foundation
Kindly supported by LOVAAS
Nachlassversteigerung (Estate sale) is an immersive music theatre piece in which the visitors discover the life of a fictional character. Only that they will never meet or see this person as he is absent from the very beginning.
The visitors enter the apartment with differing prior information concerning the former inhabitant. Thus, the prior framing shapes how the two different groups of participants perceive everything that follows.
The visitors take part in an estate sale where the former belongings of this person are being sold in an auction. They enter a fully equipped private apartment whose inhabitant was present until only a few days ago and they find the rooms as he left them. Having found themselves in the space which only a short time before, was the private home of the unknown absentee, they are now confronted with a sense of moral unease at their own intrusive presence which conflicts with a voyeuristic curiosity and want to know more.
Throughout the performance past and present overlap and a play of presence and absence unfolds.
The past story of the absent resident is being told by the objects which are present in the flat and is being puzzled together by each visitor in their minds in a different way.
Just as the experience is an individual one, also the narration is being shaped through the fantasy of each participant.
New pieces of information given by the actors in the course of the performance destabilize the visitors’ assumptions and make them question their perception and judgments.
The performance investigates how free we are in our own judgments and under which conditions we are ready to transfigure or prejudge certain actions.