Comrades, we need your hands, your voices, your presence!
Remake invites the audience to step in as extras at the shooting of a film that can only be made together. Just as youth brigades once built roads and railways in Yugoslavia, we gather on stage to rebuild a memory of collective labor and enthusiasm. No previous experience is required – only the willingness to join, to work, to witness, to remake. This is not a performance to be watched at a distance but a call to work, to belong, to participate in a building of the future that was once brighter in the past. Join us!
In Remake, Dragana Bulut explores choreographies of nostalgia. Departing from her own Yugo-nostalgic sentiments, she stages a speculative re-enactment of collective voluntary Youth Work Actions in Yugoslavia (ORA) – vast initiatives that mobilized thousands of young people to build roads, railways and public infrastructure. What happens when the old ideologies of collective work are transplanted into new soil?
What once belonged to the narrative of socialist progress is reassembled here as a practice of remembering and reimagining what binds us together today. Nostalgia is here not a sentimental longing for the past, but a critical lens attentive to its contradictions and possibilities.
Concept, artistic direction, performance: Dragana Bulut
By and with: Cécile Bally
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge
Dramaturgical advice: Andrej Mircev, Kareth Schafer, Dragana Jovanović
Music, sound design: Ivan Marić
Lighting design: Gustav Kleinschmidt
Cinematographer: Joanna Piechotta
Editor: Basia Napora
Film research collaboration: Dragana Jovanović
Stage design collaboration: Valentina Primavera
Production management: M.i.C.A. – Movement in Contemporary Art
Assistance: Cathy Walsh, Ayko Bleisch
Thanks to: Andrew Hardwidge, Chrysa Parkinson, Ilse Ghekiere
A production by Dragana Bulut in co-production with Sophiensæle. Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). Supported by Theaterhaus Berlin, Dancecentrum Stockholm and O Espaço do Tempo. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
What is the future of love? In her new HAU co-production Dragana Bulut explores the commodification of love. Together with the companion robot Harmony, the two performers host the audience at the choreographic speed dating performance for a world in a crisis of intimacy. Through alternating between dating and performative scenarios, they explore the dilemmas of connection: How do dating platforms, relationships mediated by algorithms and love robots change the way we fall in love? If love needs reciprocity, can technology provide it? Or what might we scavenge from its failures? “Beyond Love” is the third part in Dragana Bulut’s trilogy probing the way the emotional spheres are choreographed by the forces of market commodification and technology. After “Behind Fear” and “Happyology – Tears of Joy”, it deals with love in the current third part.
Concept, artistic direction, choreography, and performance: Dragana Bulut
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander, Andrew Hardwidge
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge
Music and Sound Design: Evelyn Saylor
Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich
Costume Design: Melisa Minca
Stage Design: Jonas Maria Droste, Dragana Bulut
Research specialists: Henrich Mellmann, Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin
Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (TATWERK)
Assistance: Beatrice Zanesco
Teasers: Mate Ugrin
Press: Nora Gores
Thanks to: Bojana Cvejic, Florian Malzacher, Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, PACT Zollverein Essen. Funded by: Hauptstadtkulturfonds. In cooperation with: TATWERK | Performative Research. Supported by: Realbotix. The revival is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander, Andrew Hardwidge
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge
Music and Sound Design: Evelyn Saylor
Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich
Costume Design: Melisa Minca
Stage Design: Jonas Maria Droste, Dragana Bulut
Research specialists: Henrich Mellmann, Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin
Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (TATWERK)
Assistance: Beatrice Zanesco
Teasers: Mate Ugrin
Press: Nora Gores
Thanks to: Bojana Cvejic, Florian Malzacher, Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, PACT Zollverein Essen. Funded by: Hauptstadtkulturfonds. In cooperation with: TATWERK | Performative Research. Supported by: Realbotix. The revival is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
Love at First Byte is a continuation of Dragana Bulut’s research on commodification of emotions. After dealing with the commodification of happiness and fear in her recent works, she now investigates the commodification of love and its social choreography as a tool to reflect on social changes in our affective realm.
This research unpacks the complex relationship between love and technology, focusing on the questions of ethics and the implications new technologies have on the future of human relations. Can technological developments offer alternatives of love, instead of providing further grounds for its commodification?
This research unpacks the complex relationship between love and technology, focusing on the questions of ethics and the implications new technologies have on the future of human relations. Can technological developments offer alternatives of love, instead of providing further grounds for its commodification?
Concept, artistic direction, research leader: Dragana Bulut
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich Technical support: Heinrich Mellman Experts Input: Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin Assistance: Benjamin Fischer, Beatrice Zanesco Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (Tatwerk)
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: PACT Zollverein (Essen). The realisation of the project has been made possible with funding from the DAKU funds. In co-operation with Tatwerk. Supported by Realbotix
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander
Dramaturgy: Andrew Hardwidge Lighting Design: Fabian Bleich Technical support: Heinrich Mellman Experts Input: Dr. Yuefang Shou, Kate Devlin Assistance: Benjamin Fischer, Beatrice Zanesco Production Management: Chris Wohlrab (Tatwerk)
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: PACT Zollverein (Essen). The realisation of the project has been made possible with funding from the DAKU funds. In co-operation with Tatwerk. Supported by Realbotix
Behind Fear
Better safe than sorry! In her new production Dragana Bulut stages choreographies of fear by exploring paradoxes of security and safety culture. Through the playful appropriation of safety and wellness procedures Behind Fear navigates external as well as an internal sense of safety and mechanisms through which our desire for it is constructed. The security guard team attempts to secure the viewer from the horror of the moving, lurking danger that is too quick to be captured, yet real enough to affect. When confronted with the dangers of the theater space we can fight, flight, freeze or take precautionary measures. But what if we take a risk to enjoy their dangerous beauty?
Concept, artistic direction, choreography and performance: Dragana Bulut
By and with: Caroline Neill Alexander, Tian Rotteveel, Mohanad Al-Rim, Nancy Meissner
Dramaturgical Advice: Maja Zimmermann, Thomas Schaupp
Music and Sound Design: Tian Rotteveel
Lighting Design: Elliott Cennetoglu
Stage Design: Jonas Maria Droste
Research collaboration: Minna Partanen
Research specialist: Franziska Dietrich, Julian Hanich, Alex Williams, Carnelian King, Ben Woodard, Sebastian Vogt
Production Management: Marit Buchmeier, Lisanne Grotz / xplusdrei Produktionsbüro
Teaser and Photos: Mate Ugrin
Thanks to: Bojana Cvejic ,Theaterhaus Berlin Mitte, Luka Ivanovic
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, PACT Zollverein (Essen). The realization of the project has been made possible with funding from the Capital Cultural Fund.
Dragana Bulut “Behind Fear” | Teaser from HAU Hebbel am Ufer on Vimeo.
photo@Dorothea Tuch
What will our future look like, starting with this present now? In a time of constant uncertainties, in her new production Dragana Bulut explores how people use different strategies in order to predict and also shape their future. Together on stage with a semi-humanoid robot, she looks into the tension between determinism, free will and choice making. Thereby she also refers to the influential but almost forgotten play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, who introduced the term ‘robot’. Using tools of classic science fiction, the performance time travels through the temporality of its own production within the contemporary art market. Is the future already determined by the present? If so, what happens when we sacrifice the present for the construction of the future?
Concept, artistic direction and choreography: Dragana Bulut / By and with: Dani Brown, Dragana Bulut / Dramaturgy: Ana Vujanović, Maja Zimmermann / Lighting Design: Joseph Wegmann / Sound Design: Raphaela Andrade Cordova / Sound Research: Tian Rotteveel / Consulting Stage & Light Design: Jonas Maria Droste / Artistic Collaboration: Kareth Schaffer / Robot Programming: ShowBotiXX (Thorben Seeland), Heinrich Mellmann / Press: AugustinPR / Photo- and Video Documentation: Marta Popivoda / Production Management: Joseph Wegmann, Francesca Spisto / Production Assistance: Tamara Antonijević
Credits
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, PACT Zollverein (Essen). Funded by: Berlin Senat Department for Culture and Europe, by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Supported by: Bitef Theater Belgrade, Station Service for contemporary dance Belgrade. In co-operation with: ShowBotiXX (Rainer E. Becker and Matthias Hoffman). Thanks to: Adaptive Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Credits
Production: Dragana Bulut. Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, PACT Zollverein (Essen). Funded by: Berlin Senat Department for Culture and Europe, by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Supported by: Bitef Theater Belgrade, Station Service for contemporary dance Belgrade. In co-operation with: ShowBotiXX (Rainer E. Becker and Matthias Hoffman). Thanks to: Adaptive Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
FUTURE FORTUNE from Dragana Bulut on Vimeo.