Ursina Tossi - HELL

If hell were part of a man-made machine that keeps capitalism going, that reproduces dualisms, colonizes, destroys and does not stop growing, then.... If it provokes the desire for a previous state, turns into a fascist call for authority, and after the return of the same thing over and over again, turns the world into a place where neither living nor dying is possible, then....

If the crises are fought with the means that cause them, then HELL would be an attempt to block and transform them. In HELL, the ensemble Ursina Tossi & Excessive Showing surrender to infernal states and translate them into an immersive composition of contemporary dance, integrated artistic audio description and German Sign Language.

Inspired by mythological and pop cultural concepts of hell, they stage the dance floor as an in-between space for transformations. HELL grants access to the darkness of the cave, leads through burning garbage dumps, through a backward-flowing waterfall into glistening light.

ARTISTIC DIRECTION

Ursina Tossi combines dance, media and political themes with intense physicality. Her work draws from pop culture, mythology, fictional and historical sources and questions concepts of gender, species, technology and body.

She studied philosophy and dance in Mannheim and Ludwigshafen and completed the Master of Choreography at ArtEZ Arnhem. She received the award: Promising Talent 2019 from tanz magazin. Since 2017 with BARE BODIES she is co-produced by Kampnagel Hamburg and since 2018 with BLUE MOON by TanzFaktur Köln. 2020 saw the creation of Revenants, 2021 FUX. With the new format #WILD_ARCHIVE she moves at the intersection of dance/theater and museum. She teaches Choreographic Practices at universities and colleges and makes Audio Descriptions.

TEAM

Choreography, Artistic Direction, Dance Ursina Tossi

Creative Production & PÖA & Mediation Access STÜCKLIESEL

ArtisticCollaboration, Coordination Access Nona Siepmann

Co-Creation & Dance Anne-Lene Nöldner, Huen Tin Yueng, Sophia Neises, Deborah Dalla Valle, Monique Smith-McDowell, Dodzi Dougban

Artistic audio description Zwoisy Mears-Clarke

Dramaturgy René Reith

DGS dramaturgy Susanne Tod, Andzejus Voroneckis

Stage Lea Kissing, Raphaela Andrade

Costumes, make-up Nina Divitschek, Meret Zürcher

Sound Johannes Miethke

Lighting design Lars Kracht

Video Friederike Höppner

Photography Alexandra Polina

HELL is a production by Ursina Tossi & EXCESSIVE SHOWING co-produced by Kampnagel (Hamburg) and TanzFaktur (Cologne).

Funded by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Department of Culture and Media, supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK co-production funding dance, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Media partner is ByteFM.