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Universal Export

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  • Theatre
  • Independent Production
  • 2011
“Once again, it becomes clear what makes Nikitin's highly reflective theatre works so remarkable: that he shows us how selective, how manipulable our perception is, and in general: that he makes us perceive the way we perceive.”
— Tagesanzeiger
“In the end, this dense, concentrated evening of enquiry will also have to lead back to the self, whoever that may be. To the biography - imagined, experienced - and therefore to theatre: the place where stories are told. It thus leads to a fiery plea for the blind spots, the holes in the system, for doubt, for the freshness that can be implanted into the withered structures of the system of determination: 'Yes, we are machines, but we are not trivial machines.'”
— Nachtkritik

Events

    • 16 March 2013
      • FFT, Düsseldorf
    • 14 March 2013
      • FFT, Düsseldorf
    • 8 + 9 March 2013
      • Ringlokschuppen, Mülheim a.d.R.
    • 12 + 13 May 2012
      • Gessnerallee, Zürich
    • 19 – 21 April 2012
      • HAU, Berlin
    • 15 + 16 April 2011
      • Schlachthaus Bern
    • 13 April 2011
      • Schlachthaus Bern
    • 8 + 9 April 2011
      • Südpol, Luzern
    • 1 + 2 March 2011
      • Kaserne Basel
    • 26 + 27 February 2011
      • Kaserne Basel
    • 25 February 2011
      • Kaserne Basel
      • Premiere

Artistic works → Universal Export

"You are in a room that you cannot leave. In this room you are watching a play. This play is your play. The room in which it is being shown is your brain. Everything you will hear and see in this show takes place in your head. "

Released in 2011, "Universal Export" - the title is a reference to the James Bond movies of the 1970s - deals with the legal, medical and philosophical debates in modern brain science. The piece is nested several times and, as with Nikitin's previous pieces, refers to previous works. The quotation here becomes a memory function of the brain. As with "Imitation of Life", Nikitin is once again working with Beatrice Fleischlin and Malte Scholz. This is the fourth collaboration with Scholz. The duo is completed by the British actor Jesse Inman.

In "Universal Export", Nikitin once again experiments with a mixture of biographical performance and self-portrayal theatre on the one hand and acting techniques and the creation of illusions on the other. In a twenty-minute monologue scene, Jesse Inman tells the audience how, in an earlier play, he was supposed to play a young teenager with a schizophrenic disorder and became so immersed in the role that he himself lost contact with reality for a while. Inman bursts into tears in front of the audience during this testimony.

Conceived, directed and designed by
Boris Nikitin
Performers & texts
Beatrice Fleischlin, Jesse Inman, Malte Scholz
Tech & sounds
Matthias Meppelink
Dramaturgy
Kris Merken
Assistant director & costumes
Sandra Lichtenstern
Construction
Carsten Schmidt
Production manager
Boris Brüderlin
Thanks to
Dirk Baecker, Werner Vogd, Josef Bischofberger, Cordula Nitsch, Dr. Iris-Katharina Penner

Produced by Boris Nikitin/Paraform. Cocomissioned by Kaserne Basel, Theater Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, FFT Düsseldorf, Schlachthaus Bern, Suedpol Luzern, Theaterhaus Gessnerallee Zürich and PRAIRIE/Migros Kulturprozent. Supported by Fachausschuss Theater und Tanz beider Basel, Pro Helvetia, Ernst-Göhner-Stiftung, Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung, GGG Basel, Zuger Stiftung Landis & Gyr

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