Claire Cunningham
Songs of the Wayfarer
“I really love turning into this sort of four-legged creature. All the little places that you can wedge the crutch really right into a corner or into a crack. In Scotland, we’d say nooks and crannies. I get so lost in that sort of play…when the ground really becomes… my companion.”
Inspired, in part, by Gustav Mahler’s “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” led by her lived-experience as a disabled person, her memory of training as a classical singer and knowledge drawn from mountaineers and disabled peers, Claire Cunningham sets out to make a show where she traverses known and unfamiliar landscapes.
In this new solo Cunningham asks what it is to wander? To seek to scale great heights? What can be learned from those of us who reach for the ground through crutches as 4-legged creatures, the choreography of crip* navigation and the maps we would re-draw? Of scale and time and energy? What it means to keep going and, importantly, the wisdom to know when to turn back.
Join this internationally renowned disabled leader and choreographer for an evening-length work, where she comes to understand her own journeying as a love song – to the ground, to her disabled peers and the innate wisdom of crip* expertise and joy.
*Crip is a political and cultural identity embraced by some disabled individuals
Berlin premiere 14 Nov 2024, HAU Hebbel am Ufer / No Limits Festival
Information on further performances on Claire Cunningham's website
Concept, choreography, performance: Claire Cunningham / assistant director: Dan Watson / dramaturgy: Luke Pell / artistic collaboration: Julia Watts Belser / set and costume design: Bethany Wells / sound design: Matthias Herrmann / lighting design: Chris Copland / video design: Michelle Ettlin / production: Nadja Dias / project and access production: Vicky Wilson / production management: Gregor Knüppel / technician: Keir Martin / stage management: Anastasia Booth / administrative assistance (for HZT): Susanne Adam, Jeanette Gogoll / mountaineering consultation: Cormac Lynch, Simone Kenyon / artistic access consultation: Nelly Kelly, Panthea, Angela Alves, Rita Mazza / audio description script: Claire Cunningham, Julia Watts Belser / audio description translation: Leo Naomi Baur, Agnes Ehlich / audio description recording: Juli Reinartz
Production: Claire Cunningham. Co-production: Mousonturm Frankfurt, Next Festival Kotrijk, HAU Hebbel am Ufer & No Limits Festival Berlin, No Limits Festival Hong Kong, Kammerspiele München, Sadler's Wells London, Dampfzentrale Bern
Developed as part of the Einstein-Strategic-Professorship ‘Choreography, Dance and Disabiltiy Arts’ at the HZT Berlin.