ATLANTIS

text: Ani Vaseva, Boyan Manchev, including fragments by E.T.A. Hoffmann
German translation: Elvira Bormann
English translation: Katerina Popova
apparatuses and digital programs: Stefan Donchev
music: Christophe Petchanatz / Klimperei
sound design: Angel Simitchiev
knitted costumes: Catherine Metodieva, Ilga Medarska
video: Ivan Nikolov

with: Leonid Yovchev and Catherine Metodieva

premiere in Sofia: 16 and 17 June 2022, Swimming Pool
premiere in Berlin: 26 and 27 August 2022, ACUD Theater

Аtlantis is dedicated to Е.Т.А. Hoffmann – the author, the composer, the uncanny (Unheimlich) character – as the ultimate effect of his own oeuvre. The Hoffmann mania that lasted two centuries, that has rewritten subterraneously the history of modern literature and music, is a direct result of the Hoffmann-effect: the effect of destabilising the Real, of extracting the More-than-the-Real from the “banal” tissue of the real. Hoffmann the uncanny Subject, faces his Double: the uncanny Real.

Atlantis – Hoffmann’s utopian place, the Promised Land of the More-than-the-Real, is where Hoffmann’s weird world – a world where “аll that is solid melts into air”, indeed – materialise. The Hoffmanniana and the Hoffmann mania have both their origin there.

In Atlantis Metheor Collective mobilises its signature theatrical contra-techniques. Thus, Hoffmann-the-Master-of-the-Uncanny will serve as the protagonist of a theatre oratorio unfolding a fantastic theoretical proposal, thus plunging into Hoffmann’s upside-down world.

The performance is created with the support of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sofia Municipality and National Culture Fund of Bulgaria.

 

Trailer