ABRAHAMIC WHOLENESS (OR MY GOD IS BETTER THAN YOURS).
Abrahamic Wholeness (or my God is better than yours) deals and ironises with the idea of God in the Abrahamic tradition. The starting point for this research was the use, transformation and reconfiguration of iconographic imagery, praying scores, praying gestures, ritual practices and symbolism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, elements that later flow into the theatrical representation of God. God is then represented as a female creature and portraited with psychological characteristics resourced in an humourous interpretation of Biblical and Quranic scripts.
From the sacrifice of Ishmael/Isaac (or Abraham's crime in potency), through the Passion of Christ until Quran descriptions about how to deal with the unfaithful, the wholeness of God seems to be a way to unconsciously create division instead of unicity. It all starts from the very beginning where a division of the audience by gender and religion presents itself as a condition to access the space of the performance (house of god).
God is then is represented in a grotesque and excessive way. She is as an incomplete hybrid creature, in a constant state of becoming, wearing a multilayer of personas. She is “the Mother” of all things, the Creator, the sovereign figure, supreme entity, who, nevertheless, reveals Herself to be full of fragilities, begging to be loved, an egocentric creature that makes things for the sake of being loved. A lonely and old creature, not omnipotent but hypo-potent, unable to present Paradise and often complainant. She is the whore, the lover, the terrorist soldier, the blackmailer, the housewife, the boss and ultimately the performer as well.
CREDITS: Concept, performance and space: Helena Botto Sound design: Joshua Rutter Performance: Joshua Rutter (première) / Marc Philipp Gabriel Dramaturgical consultant: Iva Sveshtarova Artistic Mentoring: Florian Feigl, Victoria Perez Royo Scientific Mentoring: Tal Ilan Tutor: Sophia New Theatrical Advisor: Werner Heinrichmoeller Artistic Collaboration: Opay L. Goldberg Repurposed sound devices and mics: Nikola Pieper Light Advisor: Ruth Waldeyer Light Operation: Víctor Pequeño Voice in checkpoint: Andrew Kerton Helpers in checkpoint: Madalina Dan, Daniella Kaufman, Agata Siniarska, Alistair Watts, Rodrigo Garcia Alves and Yigit . Arabic and hebrew readings: Liad Hussein Kantorowicz
Thanks to: Prof. Rhys Martin, Prof.Dr. Boyan Manchev, Sophia New, Nik Haffner, Eva Maria Hoester, Britta Wirthmüller, Max Stelzl, Nikola Pieper, Judith Brueckmann, Ruth Waldeyer, Alex Engels, Pierre Becker & Ta-Trung, Stephan Kostropetsch, Barbara Friedrich, Uferstudios team, Sabine Trautwein, Bettina Kempf and the SoDA class of 2014-16, Jan Kleinert, Elsa Aleluia, Ken Mark Walsh, Max Steltz, Li Lorian, The School of Visual Theatre Jerusalem and Mila Pavicevic.
Abrahamic Wholeness (or my God is better than yours). was presented on the 17th and 18th December 2014 at the Uferstudios, Berlin. It was Helena Botto's final project of the MA Solo / Dance / Authorship at the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz (HZT), Universität der Künste Berlin.