Idea, concept, choreography: Célestine Hennermann
Dance: Albi Gika & Katharina Wiedenhofer
Music & Composition: Gregor Praml
Dramaturgy: Claudia Praml
Space and costumes: Sounds of Silence
(Petra Eichler & Susanne Kessler)

Light: Jörg Poppe
Assistance: Leonie Eichner
Management: Alexandra Schmidt
Technique: Zina Matheke

Premiere: Mi 21.9.2016, Theaterhaus Frankfurt

 

dance theatre production for kids (age 6+)

Pants with skirts

(Rock wie Hose)

Pink with glitter or sports themed blue – we hear these descriptions and are sure to think: girl or boy. However, what happens if a boy picks a pink school bag? Or if a girl wants to cut her hair short? Who remembers that about 100 years ago the color pink was assigned to boys as “the little red”?

The dance performance “Pants with Skirts” (German title. “Rock wie Hose”) playfully questions these “typical” gender assignments through movement, clothing, hair styles and props. As the male break dancer, Albi Gika, shows his “girly” moment on the cat walk, the female dancer, Katharina Wiedenhofer, flexes her muscles in the dance ring.

Choreographer Célestine Hennermann and dramaturge Claudia Praml filtered out the material for this dance performance through a survey given to primary school girls and boys. The topic was „what is typical for girls and boys“. The Frankfurt musician and composer Gregor Praml then created matching sound collages selected from contemporary, pop and classical musical styles. Here, too, genres meet each other, boundaries are dissolved and music remixed.

By using elements derived from contemporary dance, hip hop battle culture, and Aikido stick fighting, this dance production and its stage design aim to blur the lines of what industry and society often prescribe as female or male. Gender clichés are thrown for a spin and tilted upside down to create and find new possibilities of what it means to be girl or boy today.

„It is striking to see how much experience Hennermann and her colleagues from dance theater for very young children have been transposing onto a higher age level with more possibilities. In the end, both children and adults are left with a lot to discuss – and a circle to join the dance. No matter if they are wearing skirts or pants.“
(Eva-Maria Magel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 23.9.2016)

An elephant-walk-GBR Production. Sponsored by the city of Frankfurt / Main and the award KARFUNKEL 2015. Also sponsored by the Hessian ministry for science and art, the BHF-Bankfoundation. Coproduced with Commedia Futura / Theater in der Eisfabrik Hannover and the Theaterhaus Frankfurt. Supported by ID_frankfurt, Adelheid-Dojo Wiesbaden and Druckerei Imbescheidt.