SENSATION IS REAL by NICOLE BEUTLER

The Book: The Sensation is Real

Parallel to the making of the performance Enter Ghost Nicole Beutler published the book The Sensation is Real. As independent artwork it was developed in close collaboration with typographer Connie Nijman. Connecting disciplines such as literature, philosophy, photography, theology and alchemy, it proposes a poetic journey through a personal archive of ghostly potential. Countless historical references to séances, spiritism and fairies stand alongside with thoughts on Noh theatre, as well as the Shakespearean proposals of the supernatural. On invitation of De Appel, Amsterdam, Nicole Beutler developed a hypnotic tour as an informal and performative presentation of the ideas that surround the book. This performance was adapted to the old office building of the Festival KAMMERmachen in Chemnitz and performed again with special guest DJ Alec Smart.

Concept/Choreography Nicole Beutler
With Hester van Hasselt, Sanja Mitrovic, Esther Snelder
Music Gary Shepherd

de Apple, Amsterdam, 2006.

For more information visit: http://www.associationlisa.com/hester/works/enter-ghost-nicole-beutler/

ENTER GHOST by NICOLE BEUTLER

The stage direction ‘Enter Ghost’ from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the point of departure for this project. The instruction is paradoxical: how can we make a ghost – an invisible and undeterminable force – appear on stage? And what is a ghost? Sight has become the privileged sense for our empirical interpretation of the world. According to the logic of our ‘scientific eye’, that which is not directly or indirectly ‘visible’ does not exist. What if we included ghosts in our perceived material reality? What if we no longer assigned ghosts a place in our fictional fantasy world, but rather saw them as a concrete, material and sociological force? How real is our imagination? In Enter Ghost Nicole Beutler aims to create space for the unnameable, the poetic and the inexplicable.

premiere: Frascati, 2006.

Concept/Choreography Nicole Beutler
with Hester van Hasselt, Esther Snelder, Sanja Mitrovic
Music Gary Shepherd
Dramaturgy Igor Dobricic
Light/Stage Minna Tiikkainen
Clothes Jessica Helbach
Book Nicole Beutler and Connie Nijman (Typography)
Contributions André Lepecki, Bob Bishop, Laurens van der Heijden, Mark Poysden, Igor Dobricic
Production Klaartje Wouters
PR-photography Anja Beutler
Management Inge Koks
Produced by LISA
Co-produced by wpZimmer, Antwerpen and PACTZollverein, Essen
Supported by Fonds voor Amateurkunst en Podiumkunsten, Den Haag and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst

For more information check: http://www.associationlisa.com/nicole/works/enterghost/