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This original performance is a World Premiere and tells the story of a search for the extraordinary voice of Emmy Ball-Hennings, one of the founders of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, where Dadaism was born. "Strings Attached" from central Switzerland is making its first appearance this year at the Garage International in Avignon after three successful years at the Garage in Edinburgh. The company was formed in the spring of 2001 with the express intention of performing original shows about Swiss culture and history that combine text, physical theatre, and live, original music in a unique blend. "Completely enchanting" "Strangely engrossing" "A good legal alternative to LSD" are just a few of the ways the Edinburgh press described Strings Attached's trilogy "A Flight into Time" that was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe between 2002 and 2004. This year's show will have a slightly different style, however, because of the untimely death of David Honigsberg, the composer and musician who created and played the music for all of Strings Attached's shows. The company performs in both English and German but will do all it can to make the new show understandable for a French-speaking audience in Avignon. Emmy Ball-Hennings is probably best known as the wife of Hugo Ball, a prominent figure in German literature of the pre-World-War-I period and one of the founders of Dadaism. Emmy Hennings was also, however, a unique personality of the early 20th Century, working alternately as an actress, cabaret singer, artist's model, prostitute, poet, and author. The show's title, "The Laments of a Flame", refers to a description of her voice by Hugo Ball. Other contemporaries described her voice as "ecstatic", "always close to prayer", and "penetrating". Nevertheless no recordings of her voice are known to exist, despite the fact that she lived until 1948. Strings Attached's new show is a search for this unique voice, an attempt to do the impossible - to find something that no longer exists. |