Laibach
Wir sind das Volk
The ongoing tour of the music theatre show, realised in collaboration with the International Heiner Müller Society.
Wir sind das Volk is based upon the writings of Heiner Müller (1929-1995), one of the most significant German-speaking playwrights since Brecht. Laibach’s own association with the theatre began in 1984 when they composed music for Heiner Müller’s Quartet, a play that was presented at the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana. The following year they met Müller in Berlin, who suggested that they collaborate. Müller went on to use Laibach’s music in a production but the collaboration never happened, until the head of the International Heiner Müller Society, Anja Quickert, proposed a posthumous project based on Müller’s texts.
The music theatre project “Wir sind das Volk – a Musical” harmonizes what has long belonged together: the poet Heiner Müller and the legendary music group Laibach – featuring Agnes Mann, Susanne Sachsse, Cveto Kobal, Sašo Vollmaier, and others. “The dialogue with the dead cannot stop until they hand over the future that has been buried with them.” – Welcome to the abyss!
Since its foundation in 1980, the collective Laibach Kunst (named after the German name of the Slovenian capital) has repeatedly (programmatically) dealt with German history, culture and ideology – especially with the prototypical expressions of fascist ideology and totalitarianism in the 20th century. In addition to overpaintings of European national anthems (“Volk”, including the anti-hymn “Germania”), concept albums on Richard Wagner (“Volkswagner”), Johann Sebastian Bach (“Kunst der Fuge”) or most recently Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra”, their work refers to John Heartfield or conducts a musical dialogue with groups such as DAF, Kraftwerk and Rammstein. In the German theatre landscape, they arranged the stage music for directorial works by Wilfried Minks (1987), Sebastian Baumgarten (2011) or Milo Rau (2015). In 1993, the collective occupied the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz and founded the transnational art state NSK there, named after the interdisciplinary platform New Slovenian Art, founded in 1984. Laibach’s artistic approach to the retro-avant-garde, the symbolic appropriation of forms of expressions of totalitarian ideologies, follows Heiner Müller’s “Dialogue with the Dead”: The unresolved traumas of the past can only be overcome by confronting the conflicts that triggered them.
ProductionInternationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft
CoproductionHAU Hebbel am Ufer, Društvo za retroavantgardo
Funded byCapital Cultural Fund
ConceptAnja Quickert, Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft, Laibach
Music, composition & arrangementMatevž Kolenc for Laibach
PerformanceLaibach featuring Agnes Mann, Susanne Sachsse, Cveto Kobal, Sašo Vollmaier, Vier Personen Quartet, The Stroj
Special guestPeter Mlakar
Additional arrangementsAlenja Pivko Kneževič, Simon Penšek, Sašo Vollmaier
ScenographyJanina Audick, Helene Scheithe, Louis Schmitt
Video scenographyKomposter
Costume designPetra Jurjec, Janina Audick
ProductionAminata Ölßner, Isa Schulz
Sound engineerMatej Gobec
Lighting engineerTomaž Čubej
Video projectionsKomposter & Tomislav Gangl
Monitor engineerMarko Turel
AgentSonora
ProductionInternationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft
Premiere Hebbel am Ufer, 8th of February 2020, HAU1
Other performances:
31.08.2021 - Klagenfurt Festival (AT)
2.09.2021 - Kino Šiška, Ljubljana (SI) 3.09.2021 - Kino Šiška, Ljubljana (SI)
25.03.2022-28.03.2022 - HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (DE)
2.04.2022 - Koncertna dvorana Vatroslava Lisinskog, Zagreb (HR)
8.04.2022 - Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana (SI)
28.04.2022 - Krass Festival, Hamburg (DE)
24.06.2022 - Festival Lent, Maribor (SI)
2.07.2022 - European Capital of Culture program, Novi Sad (RS)
… die vielschichtige Collage eines deutschen Gegen-Lebens, befeuert und angetrieben von wuchtigen Laibach-Beats. Musik und Worte kommen dabei schlüssig zusammen, beide Ebenen sind hart, unwirsch, bitter (…) Ganz am Ende dann betritt Peter Mlakar die Bühne und richtet sich direkt ans Publikum, ans deutsche Volk: „Wir trauen euch nicht“, sagt er (…) Ein Schlusspunkt, der das Publikum endgültig in Begeisterung versetzt.
André Mumot, Deutschlandfunk Kultur
…the brilliant production by director Anja Quickert and the Slovenian artists delivers a profound insight: that it is very German to think the Germans are always the others. The ones we laugh at. And yet – perhaps the central message of this evening – we are all of them.
Doris Akrap, Die taz
Anja Quickert, who initiated the music theater project, creates a fantastic space of resonance with the Müller-Laibach fusion for the ongoing dialogue with the dead, which unites the poet and the musicians. Where there is no cemetery for the traumas of the 20th century, only daily confrontation with the demons of history can help. Müller knew this, and Laibach practiced it.
Patrick Wildermann, Der Tagesspiegel