Laugh(Lachen)

I like to laugh. I laugh often. I am often seen laughing.

Antonia Baehr was sitting at the window of her small but stylish apartment in Berlin having an existential conversation with herself, or to put it more exactly, one of her many selves. Running a hand through her sharply cropped hair, she asked herself; if I were to see me amongst a group of other dapper characters, how would I describe myself? The one with the brown hair? The one who dresses well? The one with a moustache smoking a pipe? No, she said to herself, letting some smoke glide from her lips towards the ceiling, no. I would describe myself as the one who laughs. The one who likes to laugh, the one who is often seen laughing.

Laugh is a piece about laughing as laughing. For the length of the piece she explores this expression as a sovereign entity, in separation from causal baggage; jokes, tickles, narrative, humour, joy, looking at the thing itself: the sound and shape, the music, choreography and drama, the rhythm and the gesture of laughter. Comedy is not her goal, but contamination is an unavoidable by-product that sometimes contagiously trades sides of the ‘fourth wall’.

Concept, Interpretation, Composition and Choreography: Antonia Baehr; Artistic Collaboration and Choreography: Valérie Castan; Dramaturgy: Lindy Annis; Sound design and Composition: Manuel Coursin; Light design: Sylvie Garot; Technical & Lighting Direction: Rima Ben-Brahim; Sound Direction: Samuel Pajand; Administration: Ulrike Melzwig, Alexandra Wellensiek; Production: make up productions; Co-production: Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Les Subsistances, Lyon.

Organisation: City of Women; In collaboration with: Old Power Station - Elektro Ljubljana.