Donata Ettlin
Boris Nikitin:
Versuch über
das Sterben
Tausend Tode Festival
Tausend Tode Festival
In 2017, a year after his father passed away, the director and author Boris Nikitin begins writing down the story of his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The disease made short shrift of his father: It took barely one year from the diagnosis to his death. Early on, his father says that he is thinking about assisted suicide. A statement that changes everything. In »Versuch über das Sterben«, Nikitin combines the story of this revelation with the story of his own coming-out 20 years ago. From it, he develops a both radical and intimate theater evening about what it means to take the step to the public and, in doing so, to make oneself vulnerable.
Born in Basel as the son of Ukrainian-Slovakian-French-Jewish immigrants, Boris Nikitin belongs to the most important writer-directors of contemporary European theater. Time and again, his works transgress the borders between illusion theater and performance, documentation and propaganda. In »Versuch über das Sterben«, the director is on stage for the first time. The piece has been touring internationally for three years and now arrives in Bremen.
Concept, Text, Performance: Boris Nikitin
Production: Annett Hardegen
Outside-Eye: Matthias Meppelink, Annett Hardegen
A production of It‘s The Real Thing Studios. Co-production: Kaserne Basel, Gessnerallee Zurich, Festival „Spielart“ Munich, Festival FIT Lugano. Supported by the Fachausschuss Tanz & Theater of the cantons Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft. The piece is part of the projects realized through the three-year funding.