SELECTED PRESS, „KLAUS IS DEAD“

Existential pathos and plain rediculousness are often close together. Something Choreographer Hanna Hegenscheidt has a good eye for. Recently she poked around in a relationship talk, which was adressed to the audience, revealing the beautyful and horrific aspects of daily love. This time she confronts us with dying. With Martin Clausen, Anna-Luise Recke, Run Shayo and her long-time performers Christopher Daftsios and Angharad Davies Hegenscheidt reflects how the living deal with the death, always on the edge of laughing and crying.

zitty Berlin, Nr. 15/2006

Straight forward and light-hearted Anna-Luise Recke sings a Heine-poem, set to music by Mendelssohn Bartholdy. In this moment, where the love for life and the longing for death expresses itself simultaniously in word and action, the evening, which Hanna Hegenscheidt choreographed in collaboration with her five international performers, probably reaches its climax. One hour long the performers experiment with rituals of mourning and ways to deal with Grim Reaper. (...) They poke and chew each other wanting to know all about each other - because, god forbid, we don´t want to miss anything of the other before we have to part forever.

Berliner Zeitung, 04.08.2006

With the choreographer Hanna Hegenscheidt Klaus left us five people in a state of busy loss of orientation. Concentrated, tensed and aimlessly they wander across the empty stage...not wanting to settle down, filling the gap, staying busy and trying to make sense again of everything. Nevertheless. Somehow. And then, suddenly, Hanna Hegenscheidt lets all activity collapse. For minutes the five performers just stand there, rubbing their knuckles, staring into space. One is reminded of never-found words of sympathy and stilted condolence cards. And then, just as it becomes unbearable they begin to sing a choral out of nothing. It keeps going. Nevertheless. Somehow. The piece "Klaus is dead" lives from moments like that, where sadness and rediculousness, comfort and pathos are being melted together in risky ways. Moving in this piece is how Hanna Hegenscheidt doesn´t illustrate moments of loss, but creates them on stage choreographically. This she manages impressively throughout long periods of the piece.

Berliner Morgenpost, 04.08.2006