Is capitalism the new religion? The director and performer Georg Bütow, who already polarised the audience with his spectacular piece Beginnings in 2014, is back from England and brings us a very special hospitality gift; an opulent ritual for pad’s stage: Cult!
Together with his performance team from London he presents a premiering performance, a critique of consumer culture worshipping the god of money: the audience is asked to sell their souls.
As cheeky and outrageous as ever Bütow takes a peaceful world in which human lives in harmony with nature to pieces. Starting as an apparently harmless and classical dance and music performance the whole thing falls apart and becomes orchestrated chaos. Walls are painted red and the shaman who seemed so nice in the beginning is infected with gold fever and turns into an angry beast finally building himself a throne out of skeletons. An orgiastic performance with a blood spraying mammon. The stage is transformed into a sacrificial temple for a cult that offers no final salvation: capitalism.
In CULT Bütow develops a surreal horror show, revealing what happens if capitalism becomes religion, if everything and everyone can be sold and bought: Eventually we all become an offering to the beast in exchange for only a few bank notes, hawked by our own neighbours … a disaster without happy ending.
Our comment:
Sodom and Gomorra on the pad stage! A one-time-only exclusive event which we offer exclusively on May 1st. Do not miss!
TIP: Hot artist talk and cold beer after the show plus: CULT-ish launch party.
Concept / Performance: Georg Bütow
Choreography: Martina Conti
Dance: Martina Conti, Isabella Bruno, Mathias Otto Werner Berndt, Oscar Silva
Sound effects: Ben Kelly
Music / Composition: Zeeshan Azad
Light and Sound: Joel Raatz
Costumes: Veronica Toppino, Georg Bütow
CULT is founded by the EXTRA Award of the University of the Arts London.
