Ich bin da, trotzdem – hörst Du?, with choreography by Katja Münker and concept/direction by Yael Schüler, takes us on the journey of three individuals’ quest to find a connection. The piece premiered on 6 and 7 March 2025 at ACUD Theater.
As Yael Schüler lay on the floor cradling the wooden stick, Raphael Isaac Landzbaum took the stone off of her mouth, giving her the chance to breathe. Schüler crawled back to the center of the stage, searching for a way to keep her connection to Landzbaum, while Ebaa Monther still lay in the corner trembling.
There was a tangible correlation between trauma and the desire for connection which was present for me throughout the piece, reminding me how much we as people long to feel heard and understood. Personally, I feel like it’s often easier to bond with others through the sharing of similar experiences, especially ones that have negatively impacted our lives. In Ich bin da, trotzdem – hörst Du? (I’m here, anyway – do you hear?), a work of dance-music-theatre loosely based on Paul Celan’s Conversation in the Mountains, we follow three people who seem to have all gone through something that changed them. I was not able to understand the depths of their individual experiences because most of the text spoken during the performance was in German. However, considering the subject matter of Celan’s text, which touches on the process of self-realization, new traumas seem to echo old ones, suggesting that our experiences are often both universal and existential.
The piece begins with the three dancers lying in the downstage right corner, shaking violently. Wooden sticks and rocks of various sizes are scattered across the stage like unwanted memories from their pasts. Schüler’s hand reaches out along the floor, and finds a stick. Still twitching, she begins moving the stick across the floor, its loud scraping sound filling the room. Suddenly, she starts running around the stage, leaving the other two behind. Finding herself in a crouched position while balancing on two rocks, she soothes herself by humming. Shortly after, she is found lying on her back very close to us, holding a stick close to her chest, with a rock on her mouth. I wonder what this position symbolizes, and the significance of the sharp breath Schüler takes after Landzbaum releases her from her silencing. Celan’s text refers to not only being a victim, but also being a perpetrator. Perhaps I am witnessing Schüler try to keep herself in a victimized mentality, despite the act of staying quiet being potentially just as harmful in one’s journey to healing.
In another scene, Monther is seen singing and stomping furiously, while Schüler repeatedly throws herself at the door to the theatre. They both collapse out of exhaustion and Landzbaum initiates a conversation. All talking and taking pauses at the same time, the different languages spoken, Hebrew, Arabic, and German, blend into one and seem to tell the same story.
In the final scene, Middle Eastern music plays as the three begin walking away from us with synchronized steps. They traverse the stage together, sometimes doing an interesting circular sweeping motion with their feet in unison, their movements resembling Dabke, a Levantine folk dance. As they travel together and the lights fade to darkness, I think of how the steps they are taking aren’t theirs alone. We are always creating new paths where others have walked before, and as the new and the old footprints become indecipherable, we must continue to just take things one step at a time.
Ich bin da, trotzdem – hörst Du? (Choreography: Katja Münker, Concept/Direction: Yael Schüler) premiered on 6 and 7 March 2025 at ACUD Theater.
