Performance – Video

Berlin
A project by Tools for Action and Tomás Espinosa in collaboration with Berlin Kulturprojekt

Dresden
A project by Tools for Action and Tomás Espinosa in collaboration with Kunsthaus Dresden, Hellerau Europäisches Zentrum der Künste und Schauspiel Theather Dresden, Montags café
Concept: Artúr van Balen, Tomás Espinosa

Signals is a performance that can help to understand the different historical events that took place in Germany on November 9. The idea of this action is to be able to join together to feel and share the resonances that these historical facts have left us and to think about our future. It is also about bringing these facts closer to the generations that had no direct contact with them. Bringing them together through the city and with inflatable sculptures that allow us to build temporary spaces in public spaces or choreographies that help us think about our history.

For the Signals project, there are three significant historical events whose triad enables a fundamental understanding of the revolutions of history as well as the present and future of our democracy: the proclamation of the first German republic in 1918, the November progroms in 1938, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. All three dates are linked to specific events and occurrences in Dresden and in Berlin. Exceptional situations in which the relationship between social movements and state authorities, in the culmination of various events and constellations, also with the participation of coincidences, acquired a political explosive force that led to the radical transformation of an existing system.

An important element of Signals is the common examination of the date of November 9 in its facets of meaning for German, but also European history and today’s world events. As a project that makes it possible for younger generations to experience the resonances of historical events in Dresden and Berlin that continue to have an effect today, Signals also aims to try out new forms of assembly and collective communication.

Signals is an experiment in dealing with history as well as forms of future commemoration and action also to be understood as a kind of empowerment. The inflatable sculptures function as a catalyst of such empowerment; in interaction with the collective development of the choreography and its exercise, a social fabric is created, a new form of collective thought and action.