Moonstruck:

In Praise of Shadows

 Who cares about the stature of man when we can go to the moon? Originating from Hannah Arendt’s questions, “Moonstruck” immerses itself in the dark side of the renaissance to which the territorial expansion of the western colonial powers also belongs. Long before the current space barons flew to the moon, it served as a projection surface, a phantasmagorical colony for Columbus or the Spanish conquistadors. Inspired by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s essay “In Praise of Shadows” Ariel Efraim Ashbel & friends celebrate the performative potential of darkness, its textures and nuances in an interplay of performers, light, objects, and sound. On a mad journey through a rugged terrain of reflective surfaces which is as strange as it is humorous, the light and dark sides of the terrestrial desire for the moon meet. While shadowy robots dance to gentle harp music, Martha Graham and Queen Isabella exchange caresses in the twilight. A thunderous show full of cosmic changes in the weather, which calls up the fantasies and mirages of western humanism in order to ultimately confront them with the realities of the planet that serves as our home.

Production: Ariel Efraim Ashbel and friends

Direction: Ariel Efraim Ashbel

Costume: Marquet Lee

Costume assistance by me

Photos: Dorothea Tuch