FREE THEATRE CHRISTCHURCH
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • Who We Are
    • The University Connection
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
  • WHATS ON
    • The Passionate Puritan
  • EDUCATION
    • Kids Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • PRODUCTIONS 1979 - present
    • The Cat Eleonore
    • The Deadbeat Opera
    • Babylon Berlin
    • Beggars Banquet
    • Woyzeck
    • The Axe
    • Endgame
    • Digitising Performance
    • Erewhon: Over the Range
    • A Summer Night's Dream
    • How Dare You
    • A Winter's Tale
    • Ars Acustica
    • Alice
    • The Black Rider
    • Frankenstein
    • The Mauricio Kagel Project
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • Kafka's Amerika
    • Ubu Nights >
      • Past Ubu Nights >
        • Ma Ubu Night
        • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
        • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
        • Frankenstein Ubu Night
        • Casablanca Ubu Night
        • Faust Ubu Night
        • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
        • Punk Ubu Night
        • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
        • Crossroads Ubu Night
        • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
        • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
        • Bowie Ubu Night
        • Warhol Ubu Night
        • Berlin Kabarette
        • Beat Ubu Night
        • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
        • David Lynch Ubu Night
        • Kafka Ubu Night
        • Tango Ubu Night
        • Ubu Ubu Night
        • Lovecraft Ubu Night
    • Canterbury Tales
    • The Soldier's Tale
    • Bluebeard's Castle >
      • Bluebeard's Castle credits
    • I Sing the Body Electric
    • Big Heads Protest
    • Hereafter
    • Passion, Pulse and Power
    • The Earthquake in Chile
    • Don Giovanni Invites you to Dinner
    • Doctor Faustus
    • The Marvellous Corricks >
      • Corricks - Credits
    • Distraction Camp
    • Remake
    • Ella and Susn
    • There and Back Again
    • Faust Chroma
    • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
    • Change Proposal
    • Faust Feast
    • Diana Down Under
    • Philoctetes >
      • Production Credits - Piloctetes
    • Fantasia
    • Christmas Shopping
    • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
    • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
    • Caucasian Chalk Circle
    • Samson Airline
    • Antigone
    • Kabarett Kabul
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • The Well Intentioned Wife
    • The Last Days of Mankind
    • Bakkhai / Diotek
    • Krapp's Last Tape
    • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
    • Comrade Savage
    • Love on a Bicycle
    • Crusoe: A Lapsarian Mass in Twelve Movements
    • Medea
    • Songs to the Judges
    • Resolution Island
    • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
    • The Empire Builders
    • States of Shock
    • Robinson Crusoe or: I That Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
    • Power
    • MedeaMaterial
    • Salome
    • Electra
    • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
    • Hamletmachine
    • Oresteia
    • A Respectable Wedding
    • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
    • Cloudkiwiland
    • Double Act / Postponeless >
      • double act credits
    • Preversions
    • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
    • Red Cross & Takeaway
    • Lulu
    • Cowboy Mouth
    • The Meeting >
      • the meeting credits
    • Action / Tongues
    • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
    • A Letter from L
    • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
    • Free Theatre Christmas Show
    • The Ride Across Lake Constance
    • Electra
    • In Three Minds
    • The Rapist Over Suzannah
    • 1984: The Future Is Now
    • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
    • Leonce and Lena
    • Court Case: Free Theatre vs The Arts Centre
    • The Almost Free Theatre Kabernette
    • The Joffongract
    • King Lear
    • Kabarett
    • King Ubu
    • Black Cat Cabaret
    • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
    • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
    • Round Dance
    • Woyzeck
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • SUPPORT
  • CONTACT
  • CNZ application

The Mauricio Kagel Project

What I’m trying to do is something that I love, what I like, and think I need. In that moment, you have to be very honest... If you try to be honest with yourself, and write what you think you need, not what you think other people need, or music critics, or colleagues, you will then be trying to communicate your truth. If it has that truth, then it will be interesting.
​

Mauricio Kagel
10-11 September, 2015, The Gym, The Arts Centre
PRODUCTION CREDITS
The Mauricio Kagel Project brought together International composer Gao Ping, renowned New Zealand conductor Hamish McKeich - whom Free Theatre collaborated with on Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, a CSO production for the 2013 Christchurch Arts Festival - and Christchurch artists of experimental performance.

Directed by Peter Falkenberg, the work-in-development was presented in September at Free Theatre’s home in The Arts Centre -- The Gym -- as part of the company's innovative New Works
Programme, which was launched in 2014 with the critically acclaimed Kafka's Amerika.

​The development of this project was made possible by the generous support of Creative New Zealand, the Asia NZ Foundation and the Christchurch Arts Festival. Filmmaker Shirley Horrocks is documenting the project and we are making plans to present a full production of the work. 
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What I’m trying to do is something that I love, what I like, and think I need. In that moment, you have to be very honest... If you try to be honest with yourself, and write what you think you need, not what you think other people need, or music critics, or colleagues, you will then be trying to communicate your truth. If it has that truth, then it will be interesting.
​

—Mauricio Kagel
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Probably no-one can really explain what music is and why it comes about. That has always been a concern of mine. I am convinced that I became a composer because I believed that by writing music, I would find the answers. In vain. These days I am not so young, but I am very happy that no valid definition has yet emerged – the mystery persists.

Mauricio Kagel
The Mauricio Kagel Project - a film by Shirley Horrocks (Point of View Productions)
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Influenced by John Cage and the Dada cabarets, Kagel created and developed a new music-theatre genre, where music-making itself becomes theatre as a comic, absurd and above all joyously playful activity
​

​-Director Peter Falkenberg
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Image: from 'Tantz-Schul' Ballet d'action
I'm very curious, and I can live as a composer only once. It's a regrettable fact, but also a useful one, because a composer above all must know how to make use of time.

Mauricio Kagel
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Watch Beat Ubu Night performance of Cage's 4'33''.
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Music has also been a scenic event for a long time. In the nineteenth century people still enjoyed music also with their eyes, with all their senses. Only with the increasing dominance of the mechanic reproduction of music, through broadcasting and records, was this reduced to the purely acoustic dimension. What I want is to bring the audience back to an enjoyment of music with all senses. That’s why my music is a direct, exaggerated protest against the mechanical reproduction of music. My goal: a rehumanization of music-making!

-Mauricio Kagel (1970)

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...How conservative was the avant-garde of the sixties, and how conservative has experimental music become today? I could speak about academic experimental music, but then I’m talking about killing all of the possibilities that an experiment can have. In an experiment, the end result is very difficult to predict. Certain processes are unpredictable, but experimental music has become very predictable. I’m not interested in the old opposition of avant-garde and rear-guard. I’m a classic example of someone who did things that weren’t in the mainstream during the time of the avant-garde. To obey the rules of style, I was always absolutely against that. Pieces that are written without anarchy, without going against style, against the stony dimension of style, are more-or-less impossible to hear.

Mauricio Kagel
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I witnessed the results of the Kagel project, and was impressed by the dedication and skill exhibited by all of the participants. True collaboration of any sort is not an easy task. Successful cross-cultural mixing is exponentially more difficult. But I feel that the skill and commitment of Gao Ping and those involved with the Free Theatre, provide a unique opportunity to move forward into new and invigorating creative territory.

​John Cousins, Composer
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Reviews

...an evening of exhilarating colour and sound.... Traditional applause seems a little lame in this unconventional setting, but the audience delivers it with genuine delight for the commitment, skill and creative high jinks of it all. 
​
​Commitment , skill and creative high jinks
Lin Clark, Theatreview, 11 September 2015

Publicity and interviews

“In post-quake Christchurch we as a city need to start to reassemble from the chaos,” says Falkenberg, “But we can do so in a way we actually aim for a very highly organised constructed chaos and make it into something that can be enjoyed and productive.”

Blurring musical boundaries
Dione Joseph interviews Peter Falkenberg, The Big Idea, 9 September 2015
Mixing different disciplines together is not easy to do but I'm personally convinced this collaboration has the recipe for success and longevity. I'm personally delighted to be involved.

Free Theatre's quirky international project
Hamish McKeich quoted in ​The Press, 11 August 2015
Interview with Hamish McKeich and Gao Ping
Eva Radich, Upbeat RNZ, 2:24 pm on 7 September 2015  ​
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Music has also been a scenic event for a long time. In the nineteenth century people still enjoyed music also with their eyes, with all their senses. Only with the increasing dominance of the mechanic reproduction of music, through broadcasting and records, was this reduced to the purely acoustic dimension. What I want is to bring the audience back to an enjoyment of music with all senses. That’s why my music is a direct, exaggerated protest against the mechanical reproduction of music. My goal: a rehumanization of music-making!

Mauricio  Kagel (1970)
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Image of an early production of Kagel's Spielplan 'Jungfraulichkeit' ​which we used as inspiration.
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  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • Who We Are
    • The University Connection
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
  • WHATS ON
    • The Passionate Puritan
  • EDUCATION
    • Kids Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • PRODUCTIONS 1979 - present
    • The Cat Eleonore
    • The Deadbeat Opera
    • Babylon Berlin
    • Beggars Banquet
    • Woyzeck
    • The Axe
    • Endgame
    • Digitising Performance
    • Erewhon: Over the Range
    • A Summer Night's Dream
    • How Dare You
    • A Winter's Tale
    • Ars Acustica
    • Alice
    • The Black Rider
    • Frankenstein
    • The Mauricio Kagel Project
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • Kafka's Amerika
    • Ubu Nights >
      • Past Ubu Nights >
        • Ma Ubu Night
        • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
        • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
        • Frankenstein Ubu Night
        • Casablanca Ubu Night
        • Faust Ubu Night
        • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
        • Punk Ubu Night
        • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
        • Crossroads Ubu Night
        • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
        • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
        • Bowie Ubu Night
        • Warhol Ubu Night
        • Berlin Kabarette
        • Beat Ubu Night
        • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
        • David Lynch Ubu Night
        • Kafka Ubu Night
        • Tango Ubu Night
        • Ubu Ubu Night
        • Lovecraft Ubu Night
    • Canterbury Tales
    • The Soldier's Tale
    • Bluebeard's Castle >
      • Bluebeard's Castle credits
    • I Sing the Body Electric
    • Big Heads Protest
    • Hereafter
    • Passion, Pulse and Power
    • The Earthquake in Chile
    • Don Giovanni Invites you to Dinner
    • Doctor Faustus
    • The Marvellous Corricks >
      • Corricks - Credits
    • Distraction Camp
    • Remake
    • Ella and Susn
    • There and Back Again
    • Faust Chroma
    • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
    • Change Proposal
    • Faust Feast
    • Diana Down Under
    • Philoctetes >
      • Production Credits - Piloctetes
    • Fantasia
    • Christmas Shopping
    • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
    • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
    • Caucasian Chalk Circle
    • Samson Airline
    • Antigone
    • Kabarett Kabul
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • The Well Intentioned Wife
    • The Last Days of Mankind
    • Bakkhai / Diotek
    • Krapp's Last Tape
    • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
    • Comrade Savage
    • Love on a Bicycle
    • Crusoe: A Lapsarian Mass in Twelve Movements
    • Medea
    • Songs to the Judges
    • Resolution Island
    • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
    • The Empire Builders
    • States of Shock
    • Robinson Crusoe or: I That Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
    • Power
    • MedeaMaterial
    • Salome
    • Electra
    • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
    • Hamletmachine
    • Oresteia
    • A Respectable Wedding
    • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
    • Cloudkiwiland
    • Double Act / Postponeless >
      • double act credits
    • Preversions
    • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
    • Red Cross & Takeaway
    • Lulu
    • Cowboy Mouth
    • The Meeting >
      • the meeting credits
    • Action / Tongues
    • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
    • A Letter from L
    • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
    • Free Theatre Christmas Show
    • The Ride Across Lake Constance
    • Electra
    • In Three Minds
    • The Rapist Over Suzannah
    • 1984: The Future Is Now
    • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
    • Leonce and Lena
    • Court Case: Free Theatre vs The Arts Centre
    • The Almost Free Theatre Kabernette
    • The Joffongract
    • King Lear
    • Kabarett
    • King Ubu
    • Black Cat Cabaret
    • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
    • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
    • Round Dance
    • Woyzeck
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • SUPPORT
  • CONTACT
  • CNZ application