Tonight and throughout this weekend and next, our social network of fine art enthusiasts can experience a performance unlike anything they have ever seen before in a museum or gallery. They can witness the tragedy of a Nazi concentration camp unfold via a puppet production on a sound stage. Today, the ARTKABINETT Featured Video offers our independent collector community an overview of this stunning production. This is all unfolds at St. Ann's Warehouse space in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
KAMP, Auschwitz -- An enormous scale model of Auschwitz fills the stage. Overcrowded barracks, a railway track, a gateway with the words "Arbeit Macht Frei". Hotel Modern attempts to imagine the unimaginable: the greatest mass murder in history, committed in a purpose-built city.
Sixty years after its evacuation, Auschwitz has become a dark icon of the modern era, a mythical catastrophe, almost a fairytale. What occurred there is difficult to believe, sometimes even for those who experienced it. In KAMP, Hotel Modern attempts to re- enact the historical reality.
The model of the camp is brought to life on stage: thousands of 8 centimeter tall handmade puppets represent the prisoners and their executioners. The actors move through the set like giant war reporters, filming the horrific events with miniature cameras; the audience becomes the witness.
An enormous scale model of Auschwitz fills the stage. Overcrowded barracks, a railway track, a gateway with the words "Arbeit Macht Frei". Hotel Modern attempts to imagine the unimaginable: the greatest mass murder in history, committed in a purpose-built city.
Sixty years after its evacuation, Auschwitz has become a dark icon of the modern era, a mythical catastrophe, almost a fairytale. What occurred there is difficult to believe, sometimes even for those who experienced it. In CAMP, Hotel Modern attempts to re- enact the historical reality.
About the Venue
For 30 years, St. Ann’s Warehouse has commissioned, produced, and presented a unique and eclectic body of innovative theatre and concert presentations that meet at the intersection of theatre and rock and roll. Since 2000, the organization has helped vitalize the Brooklyn Waterfront in DUMBO, where St. Ann’s Warehouse has become one of New York City’s most important and compelling live performance destinations.
Through its signature multi-artist concerts and groundbreaking music and theatre collaborations, St. Ann’s continues to celebrate the panoramic traditions of American and world cultures, with forays into a variety of contemporary forms, including new commissions and multi-disciplinary theatrical presentations.
Among the many acclaimed St. Ann’s productions are Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs for Drella, Marianne Faithfull’s Seven Deadly Sins, Artistic Director Susan Feldman’s Band in Berlin, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers’ Theater of the New Ear, The Royal Court Theatre’s 4:48 Psychosis, The Wooster Group’s Hamlet, The Emperor Jones, House/Lights, To You, The Birdie! (Phèdre), The Globe Theatre’s Measure for Measure, Daniel Kramer’s Woyzeck, Antony’s Turning, Mabou Mines DollHouse, Lou Reed’s Berlin, Cynthia Hopkins’ Accidental Trilogy, Les Freres Corbusier’s Hell House, Druid's The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom, TR Warszawa's Macbeth, The National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch, and Kneehigh Theatre’s Brief Encounter.
In 2004, founding Artistic Director, Susan Feldman, and St. Ann’s Warehouse were awarded the Ross Wetzsteon Award for the development of new work and for “inviting artists to treat their cavernous DUMBO space as both an inspiring laboratory and a sleek venue.
Reviews of KAMP
́The makers have found a performance form that makes it possible to once again discuss this loaded subject. By raising the issue of the extremes to which people are able to go. With dignity. ́
De Volkskrant, Marian Buys
“The playfulness of the puppetry is drenched in rage from the outset: hollow-eyed and with contorted mouths, the tiny victims walk jerkily to their death. Although the manner in which the puppetry and film balance each other is both subtle and ingenious, it is the scale model itself that tells the most powerful story”
Trouw, Arend Evenhuis
“is such a thing possible: to portray the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz using sand, paper, cardboard models of baracks and thousands of tiny puppets It sounds like a completely ridiculous entreprise, almost blasphemous But the members of Hotel Modern have a sincere and urgent need to tell the story of Auschwitz. (... ) We see how the actors move the puppets forward. But we seem to see real prisoners, labouring, suffering, dying. It remains difficult to continue watching the horrendous scenes before us, but because the methods are both primitive and ingenious we remain seated, fascinated.”
Auschwitz Bulletin, Max Arian
”All the realistic elements contribute to a performance that is so gripping that when it ends the audience is unsure whether to clap or leave the theatre silently.”
Noordhollands Dagblad
About "Hotel Modern":
Hotel Modern is a theatre group established in 1997. Its members are actresses Arlène Hoornweg and Pauline Kalker and visual artist Herman Helle. In Kamp, they collaborated with sound artist Ruud van der Pluijm. They blend visual art, puppetry, music and film in evocative productions. Scale models are of central importance in their theatrical universe: these provide an opportunity to view the world, literally, from a macro perspective. This is unique in the theatre world and allows them to approach the subject in a completely new way.
Hotel Modern is idealistic in the sense that they believe the watching and experiencing of theatre can encourage reconciliation. They attempt to offer solace to a society and a world in which people sometimes seem fearful of one another. This consolation is not achieved by creating a saccharine performance, but by representing harsh reality in a refined, poetic manner.
Hotel Modern performs worldwide and has won several national and international theatre prizes.
More information can be found on their artistic and innovative website www.hotelmodern.nl.
Voorhaven 21 3025 HC Rotterdam The Netherlands tel: + 31 (0)10 425 95 88 email: info
hotelmodern [dot] nl
St. Ann’s Warehouse | 38 Water Street, dumboBKLYN | Box Office: 718.254.8779, 866.811.4111
(The acronym DUMBO stands for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass" and describes the city's most vibrant new neighborhood, the old industrial district along the Brooklyn Waterfront between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Dumbo is also a fat elephant.
Chief among DUMBO's many assets are its dramatic, unrestrained views of the Manhattan skyline. St. Ann's Warehouse is located at 38 Water Street, opposite the entrance to Fulton Ferry State Park, one of the rare places in New York wh ere you can walk along the riverbank, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. Beyond the waterside park, the cobblestone streets are full of surprises: a chocolatier, art studios and galleries, furniture makers and retail sellers, an ice cream factory, and even a restored, vintage carousel.)
For 30 years, St. Ann’s Warehouse has commissioned, produced, and presented a unique and eclectic body of innovative theatre and concert presentations that meet at the intersection of theatre and rock andthe Brooklyn Waterfront in DUMBO, where St. Ann’s Warehouse has become one of New York City’s most important and compelling live performance destinations.
Through its signature multi-artist concerts and groundbreaking music and theatre collaborations, St. Ann’s continues to celebrate the panoramic traditions of American and world cultures, with forays into a variety of contemporary forms, including new commissions and multi-disciplinary theatrical presentations. Among the many acclaimed St. Ann’s productions are Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs for Drella, Marianne Faithfull’s Seven Deadly Sins, Artistic Director Susan Feldman’s Band in Berlin, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers’ Theater of the New Ear, The Royal Court Theatre’s 4:48 Psychosis, The Wooster Group’sHamlet, The Emperor Jones, House/Lights, To You, The Birdie!(Phèdre), The Globe Theatre’s Measure for Measure, Daniel Kramer’s Woyzeck, Antony’s Turning, Mabou Mines DollHouse, Lou Reed’s Berlin, Cynthia Hopkins’ Accidental Trilogy, Les Freres Corbusier’s Hell House, Druid's The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom, TR Warszawa's Macbeth, The National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch, and Kneehigh Theatre’s Brief Encounter.
In 2004, founding Artistic Director, Susan Feldman, and St. Ann’s Warehouse were awarded the Ross Wetzsteon Award for the development of new work and for “inviting artists to treat their cavernous DUMBO space as both an inspiring laboratory and a sleek venue where its superinformed audience charges the atmosphere with hip vitality. For 30 years, St. Ann’s Warehouse has commissioned, produced, and presented a unique and eclectic body of innovative theatre and concert presentations that meet at the intersection of theatre and rock and roll. Since 2000, the organization has helped vitalize the Brooklyn Waterfront in DUMBO, where St. Ann’s Warehouse has become one of New York City’s most important and compelling live performance destinations.
Through its signature multi-artist concerts and groundbreaking music and theatre collaborations, St. Ann’s continues to celebrate the panoramic traditions of American and world cultures, with forays into a variety of contemporary forms, including new commissions and multi-disciplinary theatrical presentations. Among the many acclaimed St. Ann’s productions are Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs for Drella, Marianne Faithfull’s Seven Deadly Sins, Artistic Director Susan Feldman’s Band in Berlin, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers’ Theater of the New Ear, The Royal Court Theatre’s 4:48 Psychosis, The Wooster Group’sHamlet, The Emperor Jones, House/Lights, To You, The Birdie!(Phèdre), The Globe Theatre’s Measure for Measure, Daniel Kramer’s Woyzeck, Antony’s Turning, Mabou Mines DollHouse, Lou Reed’s Berlin, Cynthia Hopkins’ Accidental Trilogy, Les Freres Corbusier’s Hell House, Druid's The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom, TR Warszawa's Macbeth, The National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch, and Kneehigh Theatre’s Brief Encounter.
In 2004, founding Artistic Director, Susan Feldman, and St. Ann’s Warehouse were awarded the Ross Wetzsteon Award for the development of new work and for “inviting artists to treat their cavernous DUMBO space as both an inspiring laboratory and a sleek v
