"We have tons of great projects"

Hendrik Frobel, when you and your team from Chamäleon Berlin won the Theaterpreis des Bundes last year – and with it €100,000 – you immediately knew how you would invest the money: namely in artist residencies. Why are residency programs such a priority for you?

Hendrik Frobel: Because we are aware that creative work does not fall from the sky. If we want to experience art – whether in the field of contemporary circus, which we specialize in here at Chamäleon, or in other disciplines – we have to invest time and money.

What exactly does your investment program look like?

Frobel: Basically, our program includes a three-week free stay in our rehearsal studio "The Cave" for one artist or a group of up to four people – with financial support of €150 per day and person. Within these coordinates, however, we try to tailor each residency as individually as possible to specific needs. For an international team, for example, travel and accommodation costs may be essential, while a Berlin group may need more support from our in-house dramaturge Geordie Brookman or our technical team. We have worked out a scheme to ensure that the money is shared fairly between all the residencies.

Ana Jordao and Vincent Kollar, you are the first artist duo to be awarded one of the four residencies paid for by the Chamäleon’s Theaterpreis money. A professional jury put together by the theater selected your application from a total of 40 submissions. How did you manage to catch the attention of the decision-making committee?

Ana Jordao (laughs): Of course, I can't judge what ultimately convinced the jury. But what I can definitely say from my perspective is that I've been writing applications my whole life, because it's a bigger part of my job than I would like, and that the application process for the Chamäleon residency was one of the most positive experiences I've had in this context, because it left enough room to really highlight the points that matter to me. It's often the case that you despair when writing the application documents because you have to squeeze your entire project plan, including all the explanations and professional background, into 2,000 characters.

What criteria do you use to select people for the residencies, Geordie Brookman?

Geordie Brookman: We look for artists who take all the elements that we know and love about contemporary circus, combine them in new constellations and develop them further in original ways. After all, this field ultimately depends on these artists. I mean: I'd love to say that it's people like Hendrik or me who are pushing the art form forward (laughs). But in truth, of course, it's only those who actually practice the art.

Ana Jordao, you practise a particularly challenging aspect of contemporary circus, namely "hair hanging," in which your body is attached to a rope by your hair and you then fly through the air. What did you work on specifically during the residency?

Jordao: We take a fairly experimental approach, because our only starting point was actually the question of what you can do with a body that is suspended from a rope by its hair. This then developed into curiosity about how a second body, which remains on the ground and therefore develops its movement language from completely different circumstances, reacts to this first body, how it interacts with it. This gradually led to a dialog in which dance and circus, bodies and objects meet and in which we were able to develop our respective backgrounds artistically – be it acrobatics, contact improvisation, martial arts or Vincent's wonderful nerdiness and playfulness.

Vincent Kollar: Such a dialog in the context of hair hanging is quite unusual. So far, every time I've seen this practice, it's been about the person performing it pushing their own movement repertoire to the limit – with ever more spectacular turns or elements. But embedding hair hanging in an exploration of space and an interaction of this suspended body with an acrobat remaining on the floor is a new approach – one that not only opens up unfamiliar perspectives on the phenomenon of gravity and other physical laws, but also creates a new movement vocabulary.

You are now in the final days of your residency. Have the good impressions from the application process been borne out?

Jordao: I should perhaps start by saying that residencies really do play a central role in our field, so over the years you gain a deep insight into how many different things can be encompassed by this term. The spectrum is actually huge. Sometimes you are simply given a room for a certain period of time, to which you then have to travel with your entire team at your own expense. Occasionally, travel and accommodation costs are also included, and in very rare cases there are even daily allowances. The Chamäleon residency is at the top end of the spectrum. Not only because Vincent and I were able to benefit from all the resources this theater has to offer for three weeks, but also because we were given the opportunity to pay ourselves and everyone who works with us – such as our musician – a fee. Having the means to pay people appropriately for their expertise and services is unfortunately not a matter of course in our field.

In addition to financial support, the Chamäleon residency program also provides artistic support. How important is this aspect?

Jordao: The support of someone like Geordie, who has enormous professional expertise – and has also shared this with us very generously – helps immensely to advance our own project; not only in terms of content, but also in terms of its potential, beyond the residency period. For example, we talked a lot about how we can become visible with our program; how we can attract public attention. The technicians at the venue, who developed a special lighting setup for us, were also important. The fact that you are not left to your own devices in your rehearsal room, but that many people and departments help to get the most out of the project in every respect – that is one of the best experiences I have had over the last 10 years. Vincent, I and our whole team are extremely grateful for this, and I hope that these kinds of connections between renowned venues and up-and-coming artists will continue to be expanded in general, because they strengthen the contemporary circus scene as a whole. In the Netherlands, these temporary partnerships are already part of the working routine within the industry, but in Germany they are not yet so well established.

Geordie Brookman, what ideas do you associate with the residency program from your perspective as the in-house dramaturge and thus one of the central artistic minds at the Chamäleon?

Brookman: First of all, I keep noticing that there are huge expectations placed on freelance artists – not just in contemporary circus, but in the performing arts in general. Apart from the fact that they are expected to develop their art under maximum creative pressure, it is tacitly assumed that they also have a professional command of every other area of production, from logistics to administration and public relations – even though these are all highly demanding specialist areas in their own right. And each of these additional requirements leads to a reduction in energy, time and concentration for what really matters: the artistic work. That is why our guiding principle is to create an optimal environment for the creative process. And that means that no one should be under financial pressure while they are working and that no one should be required to have expertise in areas that lie outside their actual profession. That's the first thing.

And the other?

Brookman: Freelance artists in contemporary circus usually work in advance. They develop a show without being paid for this creative work and then hope to be able to "sell" it. However, circus art requires extremely long preparation times: Artists often put three or four months into developing a new production and can only hope that it will pay off in the end. As someone who has spent a large part of his career as a freelance artist, I know how exhausting this is – and how much it affects the creative process. In this respect, we hope that through our support we can really help every project to reach its full potential. We are in the fortunate position of being able to provide not only financial resources, but also a great deal of expertise. After all, the Chamäleon's secret weapon is its human resources (laughs)!

Is the residency program also about discovering and promoting young artists for your own theater?

Brookman: We naturally hope that at some point there will be another form of connection between the participants in the residencies and our institution. But even in the event that the work created in the residencies doesn't end up on the Chamäleon stage, it will strengthen our artistic community enormously. Because even if a project started here goes on to have a wonderful life in the rest of the country or even in another part of Europe, every time it is performed, we as Chamäleon are associated with a strong new piece of contemporary circus – and that is exactly what we want as a presenting and producing house. The stronger and more efficient the entire field proves to be, the better off the individual institutions will ultimately be – and thus the Chamäleon.

What are the prospects for the residency program? €100,000 is a lot of money, but it will be used up at some point. Will the artist residencies continue after that?

Frobel: The residency program is financed by the Theaterpreis funds up until April 2025. We will make intensive use of the remaining time to secure follow-up funding for our residency program and thus for a large number of artists. Ideally, we would be able to increase our financial resources even further. After all, we have tons of great projects that we would like to support.