Although our world is supposed to become ever more efficient and “better,” people’s absorption in their smartphones makes them overlook other people and objects around them. They could know everything, and yet they know nothing about the problems in their immediate environment. The new ensemble production by Nico and the Navigators takes as its starting-point the arrangement of Peter Handke’s play “The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other.” Whereas the stage directions of the original has some three hundred people move across the stage without speaking, Nico and the Navigators, casting only eight actors, focus their attention on people who unexpectedly collide with each other and are forced to deal with these situations. Today, when communication happens primarily via the media and thinking has gone out of fashion, anyway, these are complicatedly funny challenges whose fleetingness leaves lasting marks.

Through new interpretations of songs ranging from Bonnie “Prince” Billy to Benjamin Britten, body language, and text fragments, the actors explore the rhythm of life determined by rules and coincidences: How much of a stranger are we to each other? Do we know too much about each other? What do we really know about each other? And how are our stories connected?

Nico and the Navigators is a prize-winning, experimental music theater ensemble working at the highest aesthetic level. Its particular talent lies in seeing and appreciating absurd everyday experiences and encounters between people. The new production aims specifically at observing these situations on streets and public squares, revealing the absurdity with which our society today deals with a variety of ubiquitous means of communication.

The Hour We Knew Too Much About Each Other

Voice, dance & acting by and with: Philipp Caspari, Charles Adrian Gillott, Yui Kawaguchi, Annedore Kleist, Julla von Landsberg, Anna-Luise Recke, Ted Schmitz, Patric Schott | Music: Tobias Weber (electric guitar and strings)
Artistic Director: Nicola Hümpel | Stage Design: Oliver Proske | Lighting Design: Andreas Fuchs | Costume Design: Frauke Ritter | Soundscapes/Sound Design: Mattef Kuhlmey | Sound Development Assistance: Hannes Gwisdek | Assistant to the Director: David Eckelmann | Assistant to the Stage Designer: Sonja Winkler, Caroline Forisch | Assistant to the Costume Designer: Cristina Lelli

A production by Nico and the Navigators with Kampnagel Hamburg. Co-produced by Théâtre de Nîmes – Scène conventionnée pour la danse contemporaine.
With support from the German Federal Cultural Foundation, Schering Stiftung, Augstein Stiftung, Radialstiftung and funding from the State of Berlin.