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BONES
Claude Jansen / Fabrice Mazliah

Fabrice Mazliah kneels shirtless on a stage, looking upward with thin, two curved bones in his mouth. In front of him lie parts of a human skeleton, including a skull. He wears a chest strap used by athletes to measure biometric data. (EN)
A person lies on their back on stage, wearing roughly sewn leather clothing. They raise their left arm, holding a feather duster (?) with human hair. In the background are other performers and a skeleton. (EN)
A performer supports themselves on the stage floor with both arms, head lowered. In the background, the audience sits in a semicircle, some wearing VR headsets. (EN)
Fabrice Mazliah kneels shirtless on a stage, looking upward with thin, two curved bones in his mouth. In front of him lie parts of a human skeleton, including a skull. He wears a chest strap used by athletes to measure biometric data. (EN)
A person lies on their back on stage, wearing roughly sewn leather clothing. They raise their left arm, holding a feather duster (?) with human hair. In the background are other performers and a skeleton. (EN)
A performer supports themselves on the stage floor with both arms, head lowered. In the background, the audience sits in a semicircle, some wearing VR headsets. (EN)

Frankfurt LAB, Halle 1

Fr. 14.11. | 18:30 Uhr Sa. 15.11. | 19:30 Uhr, Meet the Artist afterwards So. 16.11. | 18:00 Uhr

Duration: approx. 90 minutes
Language: English / German / Oshiwambo
Tickets: €17, concessions €8

Sypnosis

BONES is an immersive performance by the choreographer Fabrice Mazliah and the curator Claude Jansen. Together with a team of Namibian and German artists, they weave analogue, spiritual and digital media together to form a multisensory experience. Based on research into an ngoma drum looted from Namibia and the 8,000-year-old bones of a shaman kept in Germany, BONES draws attention to the knowledge inherent in bones and how people are connected to their surroundings and their ancestors. Supported by AR (Augmented Reality) goggles and digital sound modulation, the performers create liminal spaces between science and speculation, performance and ritual, mankind and matter. A landscape of bodies and sounds is generated in which the rhythms of heartbeats, drums, birds and trees merge. BONES invites the audience to embark on a sensory journey and opens a space in which past and present, spirituality and technology relate to each other in visible and invisible ways.

Use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). During the performance, audience members wear headsets twice for approximately 5 minutes. The use of VR headsets may cause discomfort.

Occasional references to German colonial history and allusions to the genocide committed in Namibia.

What are indications regarding content and sensory stimuli?

Credits

Claude Jansen
Fabrice Mazliah
I-Fang Lin
Tuli Mekondjo
Norbert Pape
Johannes Hellberger

A production by Work of Act and COME IN TENT, supported by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics within the framework of the program INHABIT // Artist-in-Residence, BKM Hamburg, and the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung. (Curator INHABIT Artist-in-Residence: Eike Walkenhorst, Curator Dancing Instruments: Claude Jansen)

The performances at Frankfurt LAB are made possible by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics within the framework of the program INHABIT // Artist-in-Residence, in cooperation with Tanzfestival Rhein-Main 2025.

 

Photos: Simone Scardovelli