A production by Anna Natt in cooperation with Sophiensæle
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds
With kind support by Theaterhaus Mitte Berlin

One hundred years ago, the figure of Nosferatu first saw the light of day in the glow of Berlin’s film projectors. For decades, the monstrous vampire first played by Max Schreck in F. W. Murnau’s silent film Nosferatu: Symphonie des Grauens and reincarnated by Klaus Kinsky in Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake, has been an immortal icon. And there is an uncanny resemblance between the social situation we find ourselves in today and that of 1922, when the film premiered. The Spanish influenza pandemic had just passed, the world was worried about inflation and economic crises as well as political unrest and growing nationalism, and the inevitability of an imminent change of epoch was accompanied by the identification of “others” and the search for scapegoats. Is it not time for a vampire again today?

In the contemplative performance Queering Nosferatu, Anna Natt uses Nosferatu’s centenary as the occasion to develop a queer reading of this particular vampire character through a highly personal engagement with some key moments from Murnau and Herzog’s films. Natt thoroughly identifies with the vampire. The monstrous, insatiable, and excessive nature of the vampire corresponds with that of the feminine, which heteronormative discourse defines as the “other” and as a threat. In Natt’s performance, it is allowed to be, it is an integral aesthetic-productive element. The grotesque nature of Nosferatu’s movements and gestures is embraced, as it offers a different way to confront one’s own aging, with more stiffness and loss of technique than is permitted in the world of dance and performance. Here, the concept of queering goes beyond a narrower understanding of sexuality and gender identity, for vampires are, in that sense, certainly queer beings: as pan-sanguivores, they hunger equally for the blood of all genders and they live outside the confines of heteronormativ temporality. Natt, however, circumvents this kind of anthropomorphizing perspective in her reading – her Nosferatu is far from human! In the performance, the vampire is spared the trajectory usually assigned monsters: first they are othered and feared, then we are made to sympathize with them, and finally they are humanized. Natt rejects this last step to present a vampire who unapologetically finds pleasure in his monstrosity.

The contemplative aspect of Queering Nosferatu lies not only in Anna Natt's artistic approach, but also in the atmospheric presentation. The performance is organically connected to the spatial sound sculpture created by experimental musician Robert Curgenven with a pipe organ played live on stage and cloned organ sounds using a 6-channel sound installation in the space. Curgenven intentionally works with the physical experience of sound, which is able to permeate space and body and set them vibrating.

Central to Queering Nosferatu is also the experimental video performance and multi-screen installation by Anna Natt and Dalia Castel, an homage to Jewish expressionist choreographers that accentuates the grotesqueness of expressionist gestures and relates the performance to the original cinematic expressionist representation of Nosferatu from 1922. Thus, the vampire inhabits both the stage and the screen – moving as undead body onstage and as eternal creature on the screen – and claims his memory by burning his image into your mind.

– Project Team –
ANNA NATT – Artistic Direction & Performance 
ROBERT CURGENVEN – Composition & Pipe Organ
MAYA WEINBERG – Dance Dramaturgy
DALIA CASTEL – Video
LOÏC ITEN – Light Design
MATTHIAS PÜSCHNER – Artistic Collaboration & Production Management
YALDA YOUNES – Choreographic Outside Eye