Theaterformen: Songs of the Wayfarer

In the organizer's words:

Songs of the Wayfarer - Claire Cunningham, Glasgow

"I love turning myself into a four-legged creature. All the little bits where you can squeeze the crutch into a crack or a corner. (...) I like to lose myself in a game like that (...) when the floor really (...) becomes my companion." - Claire Cunningham

What does it mean to wander? Inspired by Gustav Mahler's "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen", Claire Cunningham traverses landscapes of nature, stage and emotion in her solo performance. Following her own "wandering dramaturgy", she navigates the uneven ground with her crutches and leads us to the peaks and resting places of a very personal journey. Songs of the Wayfarer weaves knowledge and practices of disabled bodies into a crip* choreography that breaks down normative notions of dance. A love song - to her disabled companions and to her own crip* expertise. In this delicate work, the choreographer and disability arts pioneer returns to her classical vocal training and asks what it means to go on and on - and when the moment comes when we realize it's time to turn back.

*Crip is a positive self-designation of disabled, chronically ill people and expresses belonging to a cultural and political identity.

Claire Cunningham is a choreographer and performer who develops multidisciplinary performances. She rejects dance traditions and body norms and develops her own movement technique based solely on the possibilities of her own body. In doing so, she uses and (purposefully) alienates her crutches as an extension of her dancing body. She always sees her art, which she consciously develops from her perspective as a disabled artist, as activism. Claire Cunningham has already been a guest at Festival Theaterformen several times, most recently in 2023 with her work Thank You Very Much.