Reviews of works
Kaufenland
'Two of the three premieres were brilliant final works: "Kaufenland" by Jack Bannerman and... '
Step up and step down
Choreographer Jack Bannerman takes a similar approach with the striking title "Kaufenland". His piece, set among the employees of a department store who line up at the bell and leave again after their shift, is comparable in its weirdness, shrillness and wilfulness to that certain something that Felix Landerer has been bringing to the stage for some time. And like Landerer's plays, "Kaufenland" feels like a novel made up of grotesque episodes, in which at the end it is no longer possible to say what it actually tells, so arbitrary was the placement of the words and images in it. No scene really leads to a narrative ending.
Instead, shopping trolleys are pushed, climbed on or even banged against each other with force. Either people are laughing hysterically, or suddenly everyone is crying or singing. You can hear the babbling of children, a fog machine starts up and envelops Timothé Durand Caulliez in uncertainty. Eleonora Pennacchini imitates a mother with a baby in her arms, and we don't know why Mattia Serio is looking at her, even if the scene is effective. A moment in which everyone sits together and Serio asks questions clarifies the situation: What is the difference between love and possession or between love and desire. Pennacchini's answer: She doesn't know. As in "I can't help it", this piece also reflects spiritual stagnation, brutalisation and hopelessness. And great new choreographic theatre.
Tanznetz Deutschland, Alexandra Karabelas 28.5.24
*Translated from Germany
Hello, My old friend.
There is so much to discover, so many doors are opened to different emotional worlds that you don't have to understand all of them. Jack Bannerman (Hello, my old friend), for example, leaves viewers wondering with his seemingly never-ending blend of memories and re-encounters of feelings and people. But not understanding doesn't mean that you can't recognize the uniqueness and simply enjoy it.*
Thüringer Allgemeine, Peter Rossbach. 23.5.2022 *Translated from German
Do you feel at home?
»Do you feel at home?« - a probably very familiar question to people who do not live in their home country - asked the Australian Jack Bannerman and his duet partner Joadson C. Souza from Brazil - both dancers at Landestheater Eisenach - in Bannerman’s piece named after the question. With expressive gestures, precisely coordinated movement material and targeted passages of text, they managed to say goodbye to the part of the self that remains at home and found, if not a new home, at least a „safe place“.
Tanz Zentralle Nürnberg - Henrik Kaalund 3.4.2023