Sliding Away

In the organizer's words:

A play about zombies who want to make a movie

World premiere
by Toshiki Okada
German by Andreas Regelsberger

In apocalyptic times, monsters flourish. They become a symbol of the crisis and dance us the sound of doom. Zombies, for example - the undead brought back to life, attacking towns and villages in droves or trapping terrified innocents in cars. Mutated by viruses or bacteria, human-like yet soulless creatures that construct the human as the threatened norm with chilling horror. Series such as "The Last of Us" or "The Walking Dead" bear impressive witness to our enduring fascination with undead life.

Japanese author and director Toshiki Okada now turns the tables in his new play: What if it's not the zombies that are the problem, but us - the humans? After all, who decides what is normal and right to exist? And do zombies really have no soul? Five zombies shake up the corset of their attributions and work on a counter-narrative with the aim of correcting the man-made external image. And what better way to do this than with their own zombie movie? A movie "with zombies, by zombies, for zombies"! An ambiguous, absurd and clever dialog about representation and (in)humanity that has the potential to become a zombie comedy unfolds on the set of this shoot, which doesn't really want to get off the ground.

Toshiki Okada will perform "Sliding Away" in Hanover and Tokyo.