Michael Mc Crae & Juliet Meding
POWER – THEATRE – STATE

MACHT/THEATER/STAAT is an artistic research project exploring the relationship between autonomy, sovereignty, art and the fragility of the subject through the medium of theatre. The participating artists Juliet Meding and Michael McCrae will spend three months researching the topic together, testing artistic strategies and translation possibilities, and developing texts and songs for the stage.

They intend to approach the topic from different angles and explore the following questions:
What does self-determination mean within a democratic constitutional state and in view of its intertwining with the capitalist economic system? Where does autonomy reach its limits? How self-determined are, for example, sick or elderly people, children or people with disabilities who are limited in their ability to communicate or who are dependent on care work by others? Who is granted autonomy and who is not?

This debate will take place through the medium of theatre, which will also be the focus of attention: How autonomously do actors act? Why do they follow stage directions? What happens when they ignore them? And to what extent is autonomous action even possible in the ‘as if’ framework of theatre?

Michael Mc Crae

is a freelance producer, director and performer. He has German-English roots, grew up near Hamburg, studied in Giessen and currently lives and works in Dresden. His artistic interest lies in the realisation of fiction and the fictionalisation of reality. Together with various artists and in changing teams, he develops art projects for the stage and public and digital spaces. Among other things, he is part of the art and performance project theatrale subversion, which he has been running since 2016 together with freelance director Romy Weyrauch.
www.michaelmccrae.de

Juliet Meding

is a performance artist who studied cultural studies and aesthetic practice in Hildesheim. She is interested in queering approaches to representation and an alternative concept of healing. She identifies as non-binary and crip. From 2016 to 2019, she toured the world as a queer reinterpretation of the character Hamlet in Boris Niktin's production of the same name. In 2019, her collaboration ANGSTPIECE with Anta Helena Recke was shown at the Radikal Jung festival in Munich. She is working on recordings with her music project Circaea and is part of the Initiative for Solidarity in Theatre. Under the label ANTISEPT, Meding invites various collaborators to work on self-empowering interpretations of chronic illness/disability and alternative concepts of healing.