Goat Island (USA)

Architecture translated into movement: In twenty years of collective work, which has always had space as its theme, Goat Island reflected on the history of Hagia Sophia as a church, mosque and museum. The Lastmaker is the group’s last choreography before it dissolves. The choreography starts with a dance that conveys the mathematics of Hagia Sophia – the circle, the square and the rechtangle – in triadic rounds. It is followed by a march past of final appearances: the comedian and satirist Lenny Bruce in his very last show, St. Francis of Assisi saying his farewell words, and the final minutes of Bach’s The Art of the Fugue. The approaching battle of heavily armed knights marks the impending end. The epilogue that follows, however, presents the Ascension in simple images: ‘a poem, a song, a cloud’.

Time and time again, Goat Island have provided vital impulses at international festivals such as the Venice Theatre Festival and the Vienna Festival. In Germany they are still more or less an insiders’ tip.