TIME REPUBLIC

We write the year 50 according to the calculation of time by the cosmic comsomolzkis: In 1957 the Soviet Union managed to shoot a small ‘accompanist’ into orbit and thus gave the starting signal for space-travel. A sputnik-shock for the western world because finally it became obvious that the Soviet-Union was now able to reach America with rockets. From this zero-point TIME REPUBLIC takes off to tell another story of the 20th century about forgotten promises of a future past. And about this last cosmonaut, who was circulating alone in outer space in 1991, while deep down below him on Earth the Soviet-Union dissolved. andcompany&Co. is searching for the presence of the future in the present and thus resorts to the past to found a state, which doesn’t exist on a territory, but in time. The stage turns into a retro-futurist cockpit to steer the time-shuttle. All tools at hand, the seven performer/ temponauts are in constant interaction with light, music, movement and image – the stage is simultaneously a rink and an installation. The cold war is brought to the stage as victory over the sun and Ronald Reagan’s fear of an alien-invasion is answered by Juri Gagarin with a smile like a gift from the sky: “The cosmos is dark, comrades, very dark.”

"They tell the history of the arm’s race and the Cold War as a language-acrobatically music-theatre. In long, tongue-twisting sentences they pile the scenarios of the balance of fright onto each other, until these talk-cascades become unspeakable. In between there are speeches about the men on the moon and training for zero-gravity. It is charming how this whole huge history is told with means which seem like children’s early education."
Katrin Bettina Müller, TAZ 13.10.2007