Speculum

Performance

Director: Meritxell Campos Olivé

Choreography: Meritxell Campos Olivé

Choreography assistant: Katja Körber, Binita Durigo

Cembalo: Daniel Trumbull

Stage design: Georgina Espasa

Costume: Lucía Delgado & Melissa Lee

Scenography: Adriana Ciudad

Production: Natalia Flórez Gonzalez, Barbara Noske & Nadja Fiehler

Location: Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany

Year: 2010

About: The dance theatre piece Speculum explores the connections of vanity, self-promotion and self-love between the Baroque court and the present day in a surreal space of playful discovery. The use of Baroque music and dance refernces is deliberate, as it was during this time that high society reached the peak of artificial self-dramatization. According to Walter Benjamin, who viewed capitalism as a religion, in the 21st century, body cult has also become a religion. The desire to improve one's appearance has been around for as long as humans have existed, but in the past, it was mainly limited to the upper classes and nobility. These days, it has reached a new scale. Speculum premiered in the Golden Hall of the Kulturhaus Tacheles in Berlin, itself a symbol of a city in search of meaning, in transition to an ever more glittering surface.