Apparat

about the piece

Apparatus is based on the television production „Quadrate“ of Samuel Beckett, but considers itself less an interpretation than a kind of paraphrase. It extracts the aspect of maximal predication from Beckett’s oeuvre and transforms them to a dance play.

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Thus the decision is left to Christoph Winkler to give the start of the days of dancing a rewarding finale. The former bodyguard borrowed the silent pacing of four persons at the sides of a quadrateic light area from the rigid arrangement of Samuel Becketts television play "Quadrate” The ritual is broken up by four soli, danced on a double bass line which is mounted by rough screams. Poles begin to slip, the vocal eruptions gain meditative force, silence comes to be yelling and loud. Winkler encourages his dancers to completely autonomous variations, which seem to be extremely exhausted and casual at the same time. Four borderlines – an appropriate omen for days of dancing. - Tagesspiegel

„The Bey-follower Christoph Winkler put his production „Apparatus“ in the same situation of space and light. Four woman dancers circled mechanically the now quadrate surface. They changed hasardly direction, tempo and way of walking. One was reminded of the balls of a pinball machine, racing through shafts until they jerked into the position promising new points. Then there was always a cling clang making the pinball player’s heart beat higher. However, in Winkler’s production, this sound of success did not ring. Instead, there was always one woman dancer betaking herself into the centre and exposing her solo to nearly ritual bass sounds being underlined by a woman’s bestial screams. This was as compact and as consequent as Bey’s play, however, it provided a surplus of ernestness and impudence.“ Neues Deutschland

„Finally, there is - with „Apparatus“ – a new play out of the studio of Christoph Winkler. Four woman pace up calmly and expressionless a quadrate. Then, one after the next enters the centre and dances to monotone cello music in the style of etudes a solo. All this is interweaved with the guttural yelling of a woman’s voice. As usually Winkler is interested in the impulse of movement and its inhibition, in the “common body” and its intellectual self-penetration. In Apparatus Winkler adds to this motoric precision work a brutal bond of form, lending the project as a whole a perfidious note.“ - FAZ

„In „Apparatus“, his new play for the days of dancing, he returns to the minimalism of a laboratory situation, freeing its object of examination from all bonds. Four woman dancers are pacing up the sides of a quadrate like the guardians at the border between art and life. One after the other they enter the empty space, lending it room only by their movements. Bass music and shrill yelling repeat, calligraphic figures screwing therein with many counter-directional movements and contrary impulses change. One feels a bit as if in a choreographic alphabetisation campaign, where the differentiation between long and short ties, simple and double accents overpass your limits of comprehension and imagination.” - TAZ

„His choreography „Apparatus“ – a paraphrase on the play „Quadrate“ of Samuel Beckett – builds the finale of the dancing soiree. His world remains abstract, too, it is, however, more mystical. His four woman dancers show – taking turns – a variation to the music’s deep sound, changing itself in a repeatedly arising, nearly unbearable yell. The dances remind you of a dance of sacrifice transforming the woman dancers to minimalistical Salomés, whose bodies oscillate between slow movements of martial art and minimally indicated oriental figures. A varied starting soiree! Where the underworld begins and marvellously ends in higher spheres.“  Berliner Morgenpost