WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?
I saw myself as the source of existence
I was there in the beginning
And I was the spirit of love
Now I am sober
There is only the hangover
And the memory of love
There is no world without belief. We dream about what believing is, what it would look like, sound like, how it would smell. THE CHURCH of 4 Floors of Whores is a play with the sacred and the profane, a work pondering our place in the world. A sensual and sensitive container for purification, for reflection, for play, for social gathering, for rebirth, for flesh and above all, for life.
In a world where individuals yearn for deeper meaning and solace, many find themselves seeking answers and comfort through spiritual practices and borrowed symbols. Recognizing a longing for transcendence, THE CHURCH envisions a worship service that struts to the beat of its own rules. We delve into the logic and magic of creativity, intuition and taboo to conduct a liturgy that embraces the principles of pleasure and replaces convention with extravaganza. By blending rituals, sacred practices and contemporary theatre, THE CHURCH seeks to encourage dialogue, empathy and contemplation amongst its followers.
As an artistic proposal on how to connect with the divine THE CHURCH searches for vulnerability in sins, symbolism on steroids, sensuous seduction and a glimpse of eternity. Hereafter it’s all about connections!
On stage: Emilia Jansson, Herman Nyby & Astrid Stenberg
Director: Lara Tacke
Sound Design: Riku–Pekka Kellokoski
Light Design: Katinka Ebbe
Set and costume design: MOTHER
Lara Tacke (she/her) works as a stage director at the intersection of site specific, immersion and text-based theatre. Her artistic focus lies on staging texts by female authors. Her poetic, strongly visual performances, often accompanied with live music, have aspects of rituals and salon culture.
From 2015 to 2020 she studied stage directing at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, Berlin and at the Danish National School of Performing Arts in Copenhagen. Her diploma piece THE GARDEN was invited to Körber Studio Junge Regie 2021, a festival featuring young directors at Thalia Theater, Hamburg.
Since 2022 Lara Tacke has been part of the Kulkue project together with the Finnish theatre collective 4 Floors of Whores. Together they been creating a trilogy inspired by ancient Bacchanalia that will peak at this year’s Baltic Circle Festival in Helsinki. Website: www.laratacke.com
4 FLOORS OF WHORES is a Finnish theatre collective consisting of actors Emilia Jansson, Astrid Stenberg, Herman Nyby and sound designer Riku-Pekka Kellokoski. The group’s aesthetics consists of a dialogue between physical theatre, contemporary choreography, sound art and performance art – with layers of sensuality, care and obscenity. The group investigates through security, compassion, queering, desire, lust, pleasure, sensuality and curiosity and this in turn also affects the aesthetics.
Previous works are BLANCHE (Uniarts 2019), niXXXavuori: artfilm (Bad House festival 2021), niXXXavuori (Teater Viirus / Göteborgs stadsteater 2021, Teater Viirus/Tampereen teatterikesä 2022 & KONTRÄR 2023), Garden of Earthly Delights (There is a crack in everything – festival, Vitsaniemi 2022, Post Bar 2022) and Enfant Terrible (Teater Viirus 2023)
MOTHER (founded in 2018) is a Danish Berlin-based set design duo. Their most recent project is “Tal der Tränen” by Elias Emmert, which had its premiere in February 2023 at Münchner Kammerspiele. They met in 2014 while they were both working for the danish/austrian theater group Signa. The following years they both became part of the artistic leadership and together with Signa Köstler did the Set-design for “Das Halbe Leid” at Schauspielhaus Hamburg, “Das Heuvolk” at National Theater Mannheim in cooperation with Schillertage and the play “Wir Hunde/ Us dogs”, which received the Nestroy Preis in Vienna in 2016. MOTHER rethinks spaces and thereby hopes to invite their audience to see well-known and familiar situations and processes in a new and different light. They aspire to cultivate perfection in the imperfect.
THE CHURCH OF 4 FLOORS OF WHORES is a part of Kulkue project, which is a collaboration and co-production between three finnish festivals of the performing arts: ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio), Hangö Teaterträff (Hanko) and Baltic Circle Festival (Helsinki).
The project is supported by Svenska Kulturfonden, Taike, Thurings stiftelse and Nygréns stiftelse.