Radio Freedom
Play with dance, music and visuals
for children ages 10 and up
Text & direction: Flo Staffelmayr (Ansicht)
Choreography: Christina Rauchbauer
Sound design: Julia Meinx
Premiere
Play with dance, music and visuals
in German and English, 75 min.
Stage, concept: Jakob Hütter
Stage: Jakob Hütter, Martin Winterleitner
Object-adapted projection, video/mapping production lead: Jakob Hütter
Video content: Hanna Besenhard, Jakob Hütter, Jakob Figo
RADIO FREEDOM is inspired by the banned radio station of the same name, which from the 1960s onwards saw itself as a media pioneer of African liberation movements and the voice of the anti-apartheid movement. The theatre group ANSICHT, the music and dance theatre group IYASA from Zimbabwe and the Next Liberty Theater from Graz bring a new version of RADIO FREEDOM to Austria. The eight-strong team of presenters guides the audience through a multimedia, audiovisual show consisting of the most varied formats, news from around the world and the evergreen charts, a (#fake) live stream to Zimbabwe, historical flashbacks and a fairy-tale broadcast; together they search for a super-hit that encourages the audience to stand up for their own opinion and to express body and mind freely. Many voices grow loud and, with energetic dance and song, take a stand against injustice, until in the end what remains is the “we” that is stronger than any single person – UBUNTU.
Process:
Beyond its reference to the radio station of the same name, the play initially takes shape through political folklore from Zimbabwe. The fragmentary, rapid jumps of the modern show are worked into the script visually and collaboratively. They are meant to transcend boundaries and augment a contemporary meta-level. Radio is interpreted here as a stream, overcoming the limits of the purely sonic plane.
Owing to the energetic and intense nature of the IYASA group, the piece calls for a movable, walk-on stage design. Given the content’s cultural and political severity – and in view of the beautiful performance and projection – a minimalist setup of brutalist-looking, rollable wall and stage elements was chosen.
The production is deliberately colourful and multifaceted, shaped by the various formats (advertising, news, music videos). Footage from the summer of the Zimbabwean theatre group meets animations, greenscreen recordings meet TouchDesigner patches, simple colour fields give way to interactive buttons.
On site, the choreography is precisely coordinated; light, sound and video respond to the performers and vice versa.