Panel discussion with Mateja Meded, Wiebke Hüster (moderation) and the artistic production team.

Orpheus takes what appears to be the greatest risk imaginable: he challenges the gods to snatch his beloved from death. But shortly before the goal he fails. He looks back, so that his ideal creature disappears again in Hades despite all the pleading. The question of why Orpheus turns around has preoccupied poets and thinkers for generations. But did Eurydice even want to go back to the (upper) world? How much self-determination can she achieve in death that she seemed denied in life? Does the loss (or overcoming ?!) of life even turn her from the object of negotiation – from the muse and projection screen of the talented artist Orpheus – to the doer?

In many of her works, the actress and author Mateja Meded deals with the image of women in art and society. Her humorous and pointedly critical columns are published in Die Zeit or the Berliner Zeitung, among others. As an actress, Mateja Meded was, among other things, a member of the ensemble at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin and in various film productions.

Journalist Wiebke Hüster writes for FAZ and Die Zeit and also works as an editor for Deutschlandfunk and WDR. Her reviews repeatedly raise the question of locating current dance productions in a contemporary cultural canon and call for an innovative and historical contextualization of dance and dance theater.

Erna Ómarsdottir is a choreographer, dancer and director of the Iceland Dance Company. She has worked with artists and companies such as Damien Jalet, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Les Ballets C de la B. Her latest work ORPHEUS UND EURYDIKE – THE ORPHIC CYCLES will premiere on December 17, 2021 at the Theater Freiburg and then be resumed (January, 27-29.2022) at Kampnagel Hamburg.