Wetterleuchten – Systrar Productions

Video for Simone Dede Ayivi's theatre piece WETTERLEUCHTEN - Eine Probe in 5 Akten :

Who actually makes the magic moments in theater?
Stage technicians, fitters, lighting technicians, sound departments and many others make it rain on stage, light things that are not theater and show us locations that we dream of.

In doing so, theater workers mostly wear black so that we don’t see them when they flit across the stage. In HEAT LIGHTNING, we bring the voices from backstage into the spotlight. Is making the weather a nine to five job? What is a prompter and how fast is a revolving stage? The video takes us into the costume storage area, the sun will rise and set again, it will snow and a joke will be told!

installation
theatre
video
2022

Video

As video artist for WETTERLEUCHTEN / HEAT LIGHTNING, my work focused on two main elements.
First, I brought weather phenomena onto the stage: lightning, storms, clouds, and sunlight effects that, together with stage fog and projection, created an immersive atmospheric space.
The second task was to make the theatre’s backstage spaces and technical departments visible on stage. Together with Tin Wilke, we filmed empty workspaces, such as the costume workshop, prop department, and stage design workshops, using super wide-angle lenses, subtly incorporating the weather motifs of the piece. Finally, we filmed and edited a fictional passage through the theatre’s backstage corridors that returns to the stage. The otherwise invisible presence of theatre workers – audible throughout the performance – was emphasized through a filmed shadow performance.