‘TRUST’ | Dance and theatre come together to bring Arts Festival to a close

From left to right Nina Wollny (dancer), Falk Richter (text, direction and choreography) and Sina Flubacher (assistant director)

Trust,” a theatre performance brought to Macau by German Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Theatre, brings the 26th Macau Arts Festival to a close as the production takes to the stage of the Cultural Center Grand Auditorium today and tomorrow night.
Created by German playwright Falk Richter and Dutch choreographer Anouk van Dijk, “Trust” takes inspiration from the 2008 financial crisis to explore the extent to which it has affected people’s trust in each other.
According to Falk Richter, the show investigates how the individual in capitalist western society has struggled with the insecurities and challenges of a turbulent and ever-changing market.
Assistant director Sina Flubacher and dancer Nina Wollny said at a press meeting yesterday that this is the first time “Trust” has come to Asia since it was produced in 2009. Having already been staged across the globe, the ideas and concept of “Trust” actually began its development in this part of the world.
Anouk and Falk previously collaborated in 1999 and were looking to reconnect. While they were both working on productions in Asia a few years back, they met in Beijing, where they first discussed ideas leading to the production’s creation.
“We are really excited to bring the show to the place where its idea was born and are curious about how people will react, because China has a part in it as a global player,” explained the assistant director.
“We are also curious because it’s really something special, this form of including movement, text, music and performance all together,” she added.
Although the 2008 financial crisis affected mostly Europe and North America, China also features heavily in this performance, Falk Richter noted.
“Anouk and I were meeting in China when we were coming up with the ideas for the piece and I think the incredible speed of development and the way this society is pushing forward to a kind of high-speed capitalist world power was something that was very fascinating for us at the time,” he recalled, adding that the show reflects upon not only this fascination but also a kind of fear and skepticism in terms of the way that Europe perceives China.
“It’s a Eurocentric way of looking at it. We don’t totally understand it, I would say. It’s a fascination, fear and skepticism,” he added.
Moreover, Nina Wollny, who has been working with Anouk van Dijk for the past 10 years, recalled that the Dutch choreographer created her own dance technique titled countertechnique. “It enables dancers to take a bigger risk and to do very extreme movements. This kind of risk and extreme physicality is also something you will see in this piece,” Nina stated.
The 26th Macau Arts Festival kicked off on May 1 with “Lied Ballet.” The exhibition “From Lorient to the Orient – Port Cities of China and France on the 18th Maritime Silk Route” will open tomorrow at the Macau Museum, staying on display until August 30.