Dance/Performance

“The sun has every reason to be melancholy. In the climate crisis people describe it as aggressive. It doesn’t want to be aggressive at all. It watches on helplessly as its heat blazes down on the Earth through the diminishing ozone layer. The sun is a complex figure. If it could speak, I would like to hear it”, says Doris Uhlich about her latest project. In this instalment of her Melancholy trilogy, the Austrian performer and choreographer lets the sun have its say in a solar monologue. Once revered as a deity, today it may well view the Earth with some chagrin: is it really solely to blame for the ecological crisis? Uhlich embroils the audience in a thought experiment that is both playful and melancholy, consisting of spoken and sung text, movement and dance and, of course, sunlight.

“After what was a very dry summer in 2019, there was a violent storm by Lake Attersee in the autumn. It devastated the forest in which I had spent my childhood. The loss of trees was massive. Ever since, I have been toying with the idea of bringing the sun on stage and writing a monologue of the sun.” (Doris Uhlich)