Der empathische Körper 2020-2023


 

Empathy is an evolutionary phenomenon that is widely described in a developmental psychological context (keyword: mirror neurons). But empathy is not a universal solidarity glue, as therapeutic concepts like to suggest us. It is a genetic-neuronal concept, it is the answer to the question of the best possible survival strategy. For this very reason, empathy can be a condition for conflicts and delinquent behavior across groups. As a multidimensional construct, empathy is not yet widely understood.
Too many ideological breaks run through our society. One of the basic principles of Western education is competition. Its educational imperative, however, is mindfulness. This unfortunate and contradictory cocktail of ideologies creates a high degree of authenticity stressor. Empathy with oneself becomes a quandary. Empathy with others as well.
Empathy is work. To get hold of it means a daily struggle for its presence. A struggle that must be fought if we are to survive as a community. The conditions have been sown: Empathy is transported through language as well as through the approach of our bodies. In order to counter the fleetingness, to counter the vulnerability of its presence, to not leave the calls for it to the moralizers of the so-called good life alone, and to counter its threat from the unfiltered influences of digital promises, we must arrive at new definitions and behaviors. This will only work if we accept that empathy is the key to real change. Beyond all the fast-paced lip service to solidarity, which, apart from a shoulder-slapping common sense about our supposedly enlightened and humanistically shaped lives, hardly ever has any real empathic effect. With our practical-artistic work, our creative methods and artistic perspectives, we want to contribute to questions surrounding the empathy discourse and make them tangible and tangible within the framework of our multi-layered concept.
The upcoming projects of Silke Z. and the METABOLISTEN will question and explore empathy and its meaning for us as individuals as well as for the community in an intergenerational movement, and will explore its questionability using significant examples of its contradictions. The results of this artistic research journey will then be brought to the stage as a three-part dance performance project. The dark sides of empathy are taken into account as well as its immediate physical naturalness.

 

PREMIERE | WIR

19. November 2020 | 20:00 h
Alte Feuerwache, Köln

other dates
20. / 21. November 2020 | 20:00 h
Alte Feuerwache, Köln
03. / 04. / 05. Dezember 2020 | 20:00 h ehrenfeldstudios, Köln

 

The overall concept is funded by the following partners:

Co-production: Fokus Tanz e.V. / Think Big! Festival Munich, Young Playhouse Bochum

Cooperation: Albertus-Magnus Gymnasium, Cologne, Ruhr University Bochum, German Sport University, Cologne, ehrenfeldstudios e.V.

Funded by the state of NRW within the framework of the 3-year concept funding and the city of Cologne within the framework of the multi-year project funding.