Spiegelneuronen / Mirror Neurons

Rimini Protokoll (Stefan Kaegi) / Sasha Waltz & Guests, Salzburger Festspiele, Radialsystem Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg etc.

This piece is an experiment, conducted anew in every performance. It revolves around the human brain and its relationship with the body. The audience is an essential part of the experiment, because its members are invited not only to watch the dancers but also to find their own groove, to participate from their seats as an active part of a collective system, and to feel the sensation of belonging to a vast hive brain.

Spiegelneuronen (Mirror Neurons) marks the first joint project with Sasha Waltz & Guests. Following on from Andrew Schneider’s remains in 2020, this project continues the dance company’s openness to new styles as well as its commitment to broaden its repertory through artistic exploration and interdisciplinary cooperation with international artists. The collectives come from markedly different artistic directions, but are equally interested in the unconventional use of space and in interdisciplinary work. In this first collaboration, Stefan Kaegi will join forces with both the dancers from Sasha Waltz & Guests and the audience for an exploration of the relationship between the individual and society, conducted through the medium of dance in front of a large mirror.

Mirrors have a long tradition in ballet rehearsal rooms. Historically, their function was mainly prescriptive, serving to perfect the corps de ballet: a synchronized throng of dancers disciplined and drilled into one big organism. It’s no wonder that the mirror experienced a loss of status amid the growing focus on the individual and the rise of subjective freedom in modern and contemporary dance. This documentary dance performance now turns the mirror onto the members of the audience and includes them in the experiment as a subject of observation.

Concept and direction: Stefan Kaegi
Music: Tobias Koch
Stage: Dominic Huber
Video: Mikko Gaestel
Dramaturgy: Silke Bake
Dancers: Melissa Kieffer, Dominique McDougal, Francisco Martínez Miranda, Orlando Rodriguez, László Sandig, Wibke Storkan

With the voices of: 
Christina von Braun, professor emeritus, author, filmmaker, initiator of the Gender Studies programme at the Humboldt University of Berlin, co-founder of the Selma Stern Centre for Jewish Studies.
John Dylan-Haynes, Professor of Theory and Analysis of Long-Range Brain Signalling at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience and Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging Charité / Humboldt University. 
Sarah Karim, Research Associate at the Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences.
Tim Landgraf, Professor at the Institute of Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin and founder and head of the Biorobotics Lab at the Dahlem Center for Machine Learning and Robotics. Nora Schultz, Scientific Advisor to the German Ethics Council, freelance science journalist.Prof. Dr Tania Singer, Scientific Director of the Social Neuroscience Lab of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. Founder and head of the ReSource project.

Link to the Rimini Protokoll Website with more reviews, materials and touring dates