Roughhouse – Holland Festival

Roughhouse could be characterised as an edgy, Dadaesque comic. Richard Siegal, the artistic director of Ballet of Difference, hurls text and movement together in this critical look at the 21st-century media world in which the meaning of both violence and truth have become absurdly ambiguous. The cast of nine dancers and actors furiously hurtle themselves through an avalanche of words and gestures with breakneck, slapstick timing. The title Roughhouse is derived from the term ‘roughhousing’, describing the manner of play in which children are socialised to responsibly express agression. In Roughhouse, the dancers and actors are all placed equally on unstable footing, each venturing out of their comfort zone to unleash language as mercilessly as they do their own bodies. download the programme book

The American choreographer Richard Siegal will be making his debut at the Holland Festival this year with Roughhouse. The production is a collaboration between his own ensemble, Ballet of

Difference, and actors from Schauspiel Köln. Roughhouse is a playful critique of 21st-century reality, in which we increasingly experience the world indirectly, through media. The title refers to an early stage in human development – the moment when a child comes to an understanding of the boundaries of their own body and those of others through play-fighting and wrestling. This kind of roughhousing teaches children to channel their strength and aggression and to assume various social roles – it’s a crucial part of the socialization process. Siegal takes this principle as the starting point for a performance that is situated at the tipping point when play ceases to be fun but instead begins to hurt.

Roughhouse is reminiscent of a furious, hyperactive, Dadaesque cartoon. Elements of slapstick, subtle humour and unexpected outbursts of violence à la Quentin Tarantino come together in a dizzyingly dynamic collage of dance and text. In addition to the choreography and direction, Siegal is also authored the text, which serves as the driving force of the performance. It’s a verbal tour de force, full of hashtags such as #metoo, socially engaged protest, politically correct tirades and various forms of controversial language. Siegal is exploring the way that language seeks to be politically correct and take people’s sensitivities into account while at the same time demanding the freedom to break through all taboos. He shows the mechanisms of alliance, collaboration, integration and exclusion that govern human interaction. Roughhouse asks the question: if everyone has their own truth, how can we come to understand one another? And what does that mean for our society?

Siegal’s language reverberates into the bodies of the ten dancers and actors. Absurd associations and word games are echoed in their movements. It is language gone viral – literally and figuratively. As the people on stage attack one another verbally and physically, wrestling on the unstable surface, they embody revolutionaries and terrorists, victims and perpetrators, the dominant majority and the helpless minority and vice versa. Everything communicates, but no one understands each other. Ultimately language falls short.

This playful exploration of contemporary issues is intercut with scenes from Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone – the first dramatic work that we know of in which language is used to create a system of jurisprudence. Siegal is going back to this ancient text in an attempt to re-establish a clear, shared frame of reference for what is and is not permissible in social interaction – particularly when it comes to the way we use language.

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choreography Richard Siegal direction Richard Siegal text Richard Siegal dancers Yuri Englert, Marlene Goksch, Nicola Gründel, Stefko Hanushevsky, Courtney Henry, Seán McDonagh, Margarida de Abreu Neto dramaturgy Stawrula Panagiotaki, Tobias Staab composition Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch stage design Jens Kilian, Richard Siegal light design Gilles Gentner costumes Flora Miranda video Lea Heutelbeck translation Tobias Staab ballet master Caroline Geiger producer Miria Wurm assistant stage manager Stella Lennert costumes assistent Christin Winkler inspector David Schäfer prompter Christiane Sundermann surtitle operator Catherine Schumann Direction assistant Cemil Özen set construction Wiebke Vollmer, Werner Schaaf, Frank Hohmann, Boris Thelen, Frank Hohenkamp, Wenke Wesemann set technology Justin Skowasch sports expert Gjuum light operator Jürgen Kapitein, Hannes Grethe sound engineer Martin Pfaffhausen, Martin Töpler, Gero Wycik video technology Jochen Ohr, Thomas Toth production leader Alex Kempe costume department Johanna Biehl, Anne Kathrin Lüth, Elisabeth Schlückler shoemaker Carmen Comanns hat maker Daphne van der Grinten, Susanne Wade paint studio Luise Unger dressers Moez Ben Brahim, Katja Böhm, Eva Gamble, Saskia Räde Maskenbild, Birgit Herber props Tobias Bergmann, Susanne Haaf, Erwin Haas, Maike Kraus, Ursula Krenzler, Julia Lehmann, Carmen Stieg make-up Birgit Herber with the support of Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Kulturreferat der Landeshaupstadt München, Ministerium für Kultur un Wissenschaft des Lands Nordrhein-Westfalen in co-production with Tanz Köln, Muffatwerk München ( Richard Siegal is resident choreographer at Muffatwerk ..., Richard Siegal / The Bakery and Ecotopia Dance Productions

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