Futur4

By Helgard Haug / Daniel Wetzel

What does one generation expect from the next? What legacy will be inherited? Is it even possible to compare the experiences of young people today with those from 50 years ago? And what about the youth of 50 years from now?

One of the two protagonists of this documentary work comes from Transylvania and was bought out of Romania by the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1970s - “without a receipt”, without an option to return, disconnected from her own history. 50 years and many turning points later, she enters into a dialog on stage with an AI expert and various simulations of herself - modeled with AI on the basis of private and historical data. A science fiction that can be experienced.

New futures are constantly being designed from the patterns of the past, questioning expectations and possibilities in equal measure.

What does the ‘right to one's own past and history’ (Herta Müller) do to the ability to shape the future?
What can, what does the next generation want to know? How will it relate to what was? How can it be measured against it as it approaches? What processes of change do cultural identities undergo? How are they disrupted, modified, contained?

Every evening, the play cuts its way further into a present that was still the future during previous performances.

Futur4 is the third part of a series of monologues following ‘Black Tie’ (2008) and ‘Quality Control’ (2013).

With: Ursula Gärtner, Xenia Klinge, Ursula_Bot

Concept, text & direction: Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel
Dramaturgy: Christiane Kühl
Scenography: Dominik Steinmann
Technical direction, light design, show system design: Joscha Eckert
Video design: Juan Pablo Gaviria Bedoya
Costume: Christine Ruynat
Sound design: Peter Breitenbach
Artistic collaboration: Paula Holzhauer

Internship: Milli Keil
Production Management & Collaboration Research: Lara Fischer

A production by Rimini Apparat in co-production with Goethe-Institut Bucharest, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Sibiu International Theatre Festival / ‘Radu Stanca’ National Theatre (Romania), Theater RAMPE in Stuttgart and Theater im Pumpenhaus.

Performance rights: schaefersphilippen theatre and media GbR

The production is funded by the project ‘NARDIV - United in Narrative Diversity? Cultural (Ex-)Change and Mutual Perceptions in Eastern and Western Europe at the threshold of the digital age’ which is financed by the Horizon Europe Programme of the European Union under grant agreement number 101095171. The production is also funded by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation and the Kunststiftung NRW.
With the kind support of the Akademie der Künste, Section: Film and Media Arts.