Hard to be a God — Moritz Ostruschnjak
” Digitalization deobjectifies the world by rendering it information. It is also abolishing memories. Instead of pursuing memories, we store vast amounts of data. (…) We do not live in a reign of violence, but in a reign of information masquerading as freedom.”
Byung-Chul Han
Moritz Ostruschnjak’s new piece “Hard to be a god” is based on the dystopian novel “Island of lost memory” by the Japanese author Yoko Ogawa, which serves as inspiration for an autonomous physical-sensual translation free of classical narrative constraints. In it, an anonymous dictatorship has things and memories banished by the so-called memory police. Those who pursue them are arrested, deported or killed. Until everything dissolves – landscapes, possessions, bodies – first in parts, then in its entirety.
“Hard to be a god” focuses on the thematic complex of remembering/forgetting/ disappearing and understands Ogawa’s novel as an analogy of our present, in which countless data are stored and disembody our world in bits and byts, which ultimately make us forget the past and our physicality.
Congruent to this, Ostruschnjak works on stage in choreography, video, music and light with a kind of blurring: concrete things fade with time, lose focus, become duller, eerier, more ghostly – until everything disappears and only the squeaking of shoes, breathing, the rustling of clothes can be heard.
Aesthetically, Ostruschnjak works with the principles of Copy&Paste, Cut&Mix. Wildly collaged and layered on top of each other time levels, genres, styles and techniques are combined – choreographically, visually and musically – until the narrative of our reality emerges from the most heterogeneous elements and connections: Monty Python paints Breugel, Futurism embraces the Middle Ages and Haydn features Kraftwerk…
About Moritz Ostruschnjak
In his works Moritz Ostruschnjak dwells upon the transformations in physical and social experiences in times of digitization and virtualization. His pieces are spaces made up of hyperlinks which utilize the media-machinery of the 21st century as a motif as well as an archive, thus mirroring and reflecting social processes. Following the principle of pick & mix and cut & paste, highly heterogeneous elements and connections form the narrative of a reality in which the boundaries between politics,
entertainment and populism become increasingly indistinct. As an active member of the graffiti sprayer scene, Moritz Ostruschnjak developed his interest in contemporary dance through breakdancing. He studied at Iwanson International in Munich and completed his training with Maurice Béjart in Lausanne. After this, he worked as a dancer at home and abroad. He has been working as a freelance choreographer in Munich since 2013 and created the solo “Island of Only Oneland” and the ensemble pieces “Text Neck”, “BOIDS”, “UNSTERN” and “AUTOPLAY”. His production “YESTER:NOW” (2021) premiered at Munich’s largest concert, the Philharmonic hall of the Gasteig and in 2022 he realized his latest piece “TERMINAL BEACH”. His works have been performed at many European festivals, the production “UNSTERN” was selected for the TANZPLATTFORM DEUTSCHLAND 2020 and his solo TANZANWEISUNGEN for TANZPLATTFORM DEUTSCHLAND 2022. He has been selected as one of the Aerowaves Twenty21 Artists (with TANZANWEISUNGEN). In addition, he was 2020 awarded with the Promotion Award Dance of the City of Munich for his artistic work and in 2022 received the three-year grant from the Department of Arts and Culture of the City of Munich and the three-year conceptual funding of the Fonds Darstellende Künste (Performing Arts Fund). Moritz Ostruschnjak is a member of Tanztendenz München e.V. and has been supported by the network Grand Luxe 2019/2020.
