5 sep 2021 Aaper Wald, Work-in Progress Showing in the frame of Summer School »Sainte Réalité« Senses, Science and Sessions
20 + 21 may 2022 PACT Zollverein, as part of the anniversary celebration – 20 years PACT
8 / 9 / 10 sep 2022 Stone Nest, London

In The Patient, the limbs of all nine performers entwine to form one literal sounding body: Through an emotional score of physically created sounds, they seem to have merged into one single organism that is impacting on them, sometimes tenderly, sometimes crudely, releasing intense energy – ranging from ecstatic trance states to mourning grief. This sound performance flings the dancers into the tension between nature and culture, between guttural creatureliness and iconographic moments of almost sacral proportions, thus continuing Riepe’s performative quest for a new position of the “human creature” within nature. The Patient unfolds its ritually cleansing impact, virtually healing in a performative experience, in institutions, museums, and exhibition venues, in the open nature or in other, uninhabited spaces. “The title, on the one hand, came about in the rehearsal context, because the sound production by means of other people’s bodies carried an aspect of care, very much patient-like,” Riepe explains. “Our first working version amid the forest brought with it another layer of meaning, though: In a union with nature, humanity itself is ’the patient’. We destroy the world, but nature will eventually persist when the ‘human patient’ has long since left this earth. So, The Patient campaigns for a loving care – for ourselves, for each other, but also for the complex natural fabric that carries us.”

Choreography/Concept: Ben J. Riepe
Concept/Development: Jolinus Pape, Paula Pau, Igor Sousa, Leonie Türke
Performance PACT: Luisa Fernanda Alfonso, Wendel Lima, Jolinus Pape, Paula Pau, Angelo Petracca, Sudeep Kumar Puthiyaparambath, Igor Sousa, Tyshea Suggs, Leonie Türke
Choreographic Assistance: Darwin Díaz
Dramaturgy: Janine Blöß
Vocal Coaching: Carolina Rüegg
Coordination: Izaskun Abrego
Management/Communication: Nassrah-Alexia Denif
Project Managment: Jessica Prestipino
Visual Communication: dasbuero. Puder und Müller
Photos: Yannick Obry, Lisa Viezens, Dirk Rose, Valentina Korabelnikova
Film Team: Yannick Obry, Ian Baum, Paul Schön, David Füsgen, Celia Ruiz, Katharina Ametsin, Miriam Schwarz, Clemens Hörlbacher, Benjamin Weu
Performance Aaper Wald: Aaron S. Davis, Eray Gülay, Jolinus Pape, Paula Pau, Sudeep Kumar Puthiyaparambath, Wendel Lima, Lujain Mustafa, Igor Sousa, Leonie Türke
Performance London: Jolinus Pape, Paula Pau, Angelo Petracca, Sudeep Kumar Puthiyaparambath, Lujain Mustafa, Alejandro Russo, Igor Sousa, Tyshea Suggs, Leonie Türke
Performance Schloss Benrath: Enora Gemin, Jolinus Pape, Paula Pau, Wendel Lima, Lujain Mustafa, Alejandro Russo, Igor Sousa, Leonie Türke

The Patient receives support from: Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds granted by the Federal Government Commissioner for Arts and the Media, the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Kunststiftung NRW, and the Cultural Department of the State Capital of Düsseldorf.
Ben J. Riepe is represented by Kunst & Denker Contemporary. The Filming location for the Trailer is Schloss Benrath. Thank you very much for providing the great premises for our shooting.