Circus of Progress

The puppet theatre group “Das Helmi” and the Schauspiel Hannover decided to erect a temporary “Placehouse” as a meeting place to rejuvenate Hannover’s downtown in a 100-day event. In the first phase of the project, the participants together with other artists developed a method to construct a new order from discarded items, symbols and anecdotes. The project springed from the desire to establish an artistic movement which can construe a relationship between all things. The intellectual role models for the project were the Hannover-based artist Kurt Schwitters, who drew attention to that which is often ignored and overlooked, and the real-visceralists – a Mexican artistic movement of the 1920s, which believed in the elusive “Theory of Everything”. In the second phase, the “Placehouse” was heaved onto the revolving stage of the Schauspiel Hannover, where 100 days were condensed into 24 hours. The show on the big stage presented “One Day in Hannover” in which every detail was interconnected, thereby evoking a higher meaning.