SunBengSitting
SunBengSitting is a piece straddling yodeling, folk dance and contemporary dance, a trip to the past and a playful, humorous search for identity.
Austrian farm boy and performance artist Simon Mayer invites the audience to get to know his life, his contradictions and his indignation at having to submit to categories and conventions. Having grown up on a farm facing traditions, nature, youthful rebellion and a bucolic heavy metal band, Simon Mayer moved to Vienna in 1997, attended Vienna’s State Opera’s dance school, spent a season as an aspiring dancer in the corps de ballet and very unexpectedly landed in a world where the word farmer could be used as an insult. The move was equal parts deliverance and constraint. SunBengSitting – Sunbeng is a word in the Upper Austrian dialect that means the bench in the sun in front of the farmhouse – deals with questions that emerge between the poles of city and country, homeland and foreign lands, pigeonholing and artistic freedom.
Florian Rainer
Florian Rainer
Florian Rainer
Florian Rainer
Gerhard F. Ludwig
Credits
Performance, Artistic Direction, Music: Simon Mayer
Sound & Live-Loop: Pascal Holper
Lighting design: Lucas Gruber, Hannes Ruschbaschan
Artistic Guidance: Frans Poelstra
Technical director/lighting designer on tour: Jeroen Smith
Production creation: Sophie Schmeiser
Touring production: Hiros, Kopf hoch
Co-production: Kopf hoch/Simon Mayer, brut Wien, FREISCHWIMMER 2014/15, Im_flieger
With the support of: Elio Gervasi/raum 33, ROSAS, Kunstencentrum BUDA, shareyourdarlings Plattform, the Austrian Province of Upper Austria, the Office of the Federal Chancellor, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Brussels, the Capital Cultural Fund and the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs
Thanks to: Kulturverein SPIEL, Trachtenverein Altstädter Bauerngmoa, die Goaßschnalzer Munderfing, Pramtaler Volkstanzgruppe, Fam. Mayer, Christian Schmeiser, Josef Schild, Jan Maria Lukas