EXITUS, a production by Barbara Fuchs, this time in collaboration with the dancer and choreographer Koni Hanft, is an irreverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil and a visual audio-dance piece. Worlds and stories emerge from song and dance, images and dialogue, music and voices that take us on a hellish suicide mission.
The premiere of “EXITUS” took place on 28.10.2005 as part of the Tanzhautnah series at the Bürgerhaus Stollwerck.

TEAM

Concept & Idea: Barbara Fuchs

Dance/ Choreography: Koni Hanft and Barbara Fuchs

Dramaturgy/ Video: Carla de Andrade Hurst

Video/ Stage: Marco Wehrspann

Costumes: Sabine Kreiter

Photo: Wolfgang Weimer

Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne, Kunststiftung NRW, SK Stiftung Kultur, tanzhautnah and kölner tanzagentur.

Press-Quotes

THOMAS LINDEN, Kölnische Rundschau 08.11.05
Dance carried to its grave Witty “Exitus” by Barbara Fuchs

“Exitus” is the name Barbara Fuchs gives to her new production, which she presented with colleague Koni Hanft at the Stollwerck. The subtitle speaks of a “reverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil”. Indeed an amusing affair, the funeral of dance. In view of the chronically poor production conditions in Cologne’s independent dance scene, the subject is basically always topical. Barbara Fuchs and Koni Hanft, however, do not speculate so much on the local malaise, but rather focus on the physical and psychological drudgery of the art of dance. Barbara Fuchs turns the tables, mocking the dancers’ masochism.




NICOLE STRECKER, Kölner Stadtanzeiger 01.11.05

The death of dance […]

Then the great performer Barbara Fuchs lets her limbs flap as a zombie and shows herself with deliberately dilettantish ballet quotations as a puppet of her insatiable urge to move. As in her previous solo pieces, the Cologne choreographer also plays imaginatively with the clichés of dance martyrdom in her new production, a duo with Koni Hanft for the series tanzhautnah, and combines such narcissism with a popular genre. […]


Reference to TV programme:
WDR 3, west.art on Sunday, 20.11. at 11:00 a.m. Live from the WDR foyer:

“No good death, no good life” In our society, which is fixated on youthfulness, we like to fade out the topic of dying and death. However, contrary developments can be observed in recent times. The hospice movement, funeral directors and doctors are looking for new ways to deal with death. It almost seems as if we no longer want to close our eyes to the many facets of dying. In art, death has always had its place as part of life anyway. The Grim Reaper has even found his way into cabaret. Should we perhaps laugh about death more often? Do we need a different culture of mourning? west.art am sonntag takes one of the last taboos as its theme.
As an event tip, the dance theatre: “EXITUS a reverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil” is recommended.



Nicole Strecker Barbara Fuchs dances the “Exitus”

“Exitus. An irreverent tragicomedy about dance, death and the devil” is the name of the production she created together with choreographer Koni Hanft, in which she lets her limbs flap either as a floater or a zombie with hanging hair and sadly distorted facial expressions.

[…] the horror in the new play has a meta-level. >Exitus< also tells of the mystification of dance, which is almost something like a religion in the scene. As a ballet Elevin, your feet have to bleed, you have to endure every pain, everything for the dance,” Barbara Fuchs rants.