Spiegel im Spiegel (2023) - A youth theater/art project
​Main Team:
Manuel Radke (Project leading and stage design)
Marie Hausdörfer (Dance Performance)
Geohwan (Johann) Ju (light design and technic)
Jens Heuler (Music)
Duc Anh Nguyen/me (radio drama, sounddesigner)
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My workfield:
Sounddesign, Dialogue editing, mixing
giving basic classes in producing radio dramas for school class
About the project:
This was a live stage project for and with adolescents, which took place at the theater of HfBK Dresden, together with a school class of about 40 pupils in 9th grade from the "Johann-Gottfried Herder-Gymnasium". Our project and work were base on the surrealistic short story "Die Bahnhofskathedrale" from the short story collection book "Der Spiegel im Spiegel" by Michael Ende, which gave this project its name.
The idea behind this project was to combine multiple art and performance forms, and more importantly, to work together with adolescents to raise and support their interest in theater and other arts. For half a year, we gave classes to the pupils (in drawing, modelling, producing their own radio drama etc.) and worked with them so that they could create their own exhibition and performance of their own works. Also they had the opportunity to have influence on on our work and workflow.
Our combined performance of radio drama, light design and show, dance performance, stage design, and music, together with the exhibition of the pupils' works (which they managed themselves), finally took place from February 17th to 19th, 2023, in the "Labortheater" of HfBK Dresden.
About the story and the radio drama:
This is a surrealistic short story that presents a nightmare/dream-like experience. The main character, a fireman, arrives by train at a station that is half a cathedral and half a train station, expecting to switch trains. An organ is also playing through the radio drama as part of the cathedral-train station.
The fireman learns from a young woman with a suitcase, in which something like a bomb is ticking, that nobody is capable of leaving the train station. Everybody seems to be obsessed with money and never-ending profits in a nearly religiously way.
Throughout the story, there is a countdown that can be heard initially through the train station speakers. In the written story, the countdown ends at zero and nothing happens.
However, in our adaptation, we decided to end the radio drama with an explosion. To avoid making the explosion the sole focus, i designed an explosion like-collage of capitalism-critical news quotes. After the explosion the dance music fades in and the dance performance begins.
The audio example includes only some parts/scenes from my radio drama to give an idea of my sounddesign and my work.