Life would not be possible without water; it is the essential requirement for our bodies to develop, thrive, grow and survive. And yet simultaneously water is in a constant state of flux, symbolising intercommunion and transformation – in different phases of matter, forever taking on a different form, flowing through diverse bodies and linking them together. Water represents intimacy and closeness, yet at the same time it reflects the cosmic dimension of that very element which interconnects all life on Earth.

Bearing that in mind, SHALL I BUILD A DAM? interrogates, from a post-human hydro-feminist perspective, new ways for bodies, sounds, text and movement to correlate; the aim is to arrive at a new form of interaction and communion that explores possibilities beyond an antropocentric perspective with its traditional subject-object relations. Things will be in flux, will influence each other, will intermingle and interrelate. The themes are guilt and complicity, taking and giving, poetry and politics, viscosity, solidification, evaporation and elapsing.

SHALL I BUILD A DAM? is a first-time first collaboration for composer Kai Kobayashi, who has been engaged intensively in music theatre for many years, with choreographer and performer Simone Aughterlony, and lighting and set designer Joseph Wegman. The project is also part of Munich Biennale’s ongoing and fruitful collaboration with Deutsche Oper Berlin: this collective piece becomes a project in which evolution and transformation become visible and audible.