“How Soon Is Now?” 2022

How do end-of-the-world scenarios from biblical times influence the actions of people in the 21st century? Who determines what an apocalypse is? Do ideas about the end of the world only represent a threat or can they be understood as an opportunity?

These questions are taken up by the DAGADA Dance Company production “How Soon Is Now?”, which came into being based on the exchange with researchers at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS). The project, under the artistic direction of dancer and choreographer Karolin Stächele, is the first production in a multi-year research cycle concerned with the impacts of global social challenges on individual experience. The premiere of the dance production took place on 1 December 2022. The cooperation partner is the cultural centre E-WERK Freiburg.

“How Soon Is Now?” is a production that invites sensory experience, and is performed in an open, mist-filled room very close to the audience. Against the backdrop of sound collages and light compositions, the dancers, together with a “moving choir” of citizens, take up core terms like passivity, guilt and repression, and – in interplay with the spectators – open up new perspectives on apocalyptic discourses. The aim is, besides apocalyptic visions, to particularly highlight the possibility of a change of direction and approaches for coping with moments of global upheaval. Following the premiere, researchers from CAPAS entered into dialogue with the audience and gave insights into current scholarly projects on apocalyptic questions at Heidelberg University.