SCHATTENKIND

a chamber dance piece about maternal violence

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
(Kalil Gibran)

In a bare children's room, a human and a life-size, faceless dummy meet. What at first appears to be a harmless puppet show with an alter ego or the childish "mommy-and-me" game increasingly develops into a tense space: human and puppet wrestle for power, the roles shift and seem to dissolve.

The dance and puppet theatre piece SCHATTENKIND deals with the taboo subject of domestic violence perpetrated by mothers: when mothers physically and emotionally hurt their own children, it leaves scars that often remain hidden. The shame of those affected is often unbearable, because the social image of nature-given and unconditional motherly love is too immovable.

SCHATTENKIND examines the mechanisms of maternal violence and sheds light on the rupture in the relationship that is one of the most important in a person's life. In the process, a physical and visual language is created between contemporary dance and puppetry that expresses what there are no words for.

choreography, dance, stage, video/ Eva Baumann
music / Evelien van den Broek
costume, building stage elements/ Katrin Wittig
puppet making/ Jördis Meister
assistance puppet making/ Sarah Loscher
light/ Doris Schopf
artistic co-worker, outside eye/ Jan Jedenak
introduction/ BLOMST! Nina Kurzeja
outreach program / Janina Ulmer (2021), BLOMST! Nina Kurzeja (2022)
PR / Katja Seneadza (2021), Nicola Steller (2022)
graphic design/ Melanie Werner

"Eva Baumann has succeeded in creating an evening with strong images that affect us and make us think about what we consciously and unconsciously do to our children."
(Die Deutsche Bühne)

"In this game between turning towards and turning away from is the moment, when mother love turns into maternal violence, a latent possibility. Eva Baumann shows how difficult it is to sense the tipping point. It is not the real presence of violence that is oppressive, ... what is terrible is its possibility, which hovers over the stage space like a burden."
(Stuttgarter Zeitung)

ONLINE PREMIER
may 20th, 2021
may 21st, 2021
FITZ - Das Theater animierter Formen Stuttgart

LIVE PREMIER
January 20th
January 21st, 2022
January 22nd, 2022
Theaterhaus Stuttgart

Further performances 2022
Guest performance July 7th and 8th in the frame of the art exhibition VULNERABLE at St.Maria church Stuttgart.
November 13th and 14th at Uferstudios Berlin at 7pm.
November 23rd and 24th at Theaterhaus Stuttgart at 7.30pm.

Outreach program
In addition to the artistic work, an outreach program for and with children and teenagers has been created to get into a dialogue with them about the topic of experiences with borders. For the pilot phase we collaborated with Janina Ulmer and following schools in Böblingen: Paul-Lechler-Schule, Ludwig-Uhland-Schule and Max-Planck-Schule. In January 2022 we collaborated with the Helene-Fernau-Horn-Schule in Stuttgart-Freiberg. More information on the homepage of BLOMST!

Program booklet
You can read the program booklet (only in German available) here

Press reviews (in German) about the online/live premier
Interview with Stuttgarter Zeitung (May 2021) here
Review Die deutsche Bühne (May 2021) here
Review Stuttgarter Zeitung (January 2022) here

Media (all in German)
In cooperation with the FF*GZ (Feminist Women's*Health Center) Stuttgart, an interview was broadcasted on Radio FemFm at the Freies Radio für Stuttgart on march 21st, 2021 and can be listened as a podcast. Information and link here
TV- contribution in the culture magazine KUNSCHT of SWR on January 13th, 2022, view here.
Interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur in the programme Kompressor on January 19th, 2022, listen here

SCHATTENKIND is a production by Eva Baumann, supported by the Arts Council of the City of Stuttgart with funds from TANZPAKT Stuttgart Stadt-Land-Bund of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and LAFT Baden-Württemberg with funds from the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg. In cooperation with FITZ Theater, BLOMST! gUG and FF*GZ Stuttgart.
The performances at Theaterhaus Stuttgart (January 2022) are funded by the city of Stuttgart, the LBBW Stiftung and Fonds Darstellende Künste within NEUSTART KULTUR #TakeHeart.
The pilot phase of the outreach program for children and teenagers in 2021 is funded by Stiftung Erlebnis Kunst and with a stipend by DIS-TANZ-SOLO within NEUSTART KULTUR by the German Federal Republic.
The school performances and outreach program (2022) is funded by the city of Stuttgart and the Künstler*innen Soforthilfe Stuttgart.
With kind support by Produktionszentrum Tanz + Performance e.V., Freie Tanz- und Theaterszene Stuttgart gUG and Theaterhaus Stuttgart.