Arme Arme Reiche Reiche / Poor Poor Rich Rich (2025)
Premiere 25.01.2025, 140 min
Two authors conducted extensive research on poverty and wealth in the Hanseatic city and across Germany, each writing a piece: for REICHE REICHE, Dagrun Hintze carried out numerous interviews with people affected by wealth, exploring possible connections between happiness, assets, justice, and society. In ARME ARME, Sean Keller turns his focus to everyone: the tall, the small, the big, the thin, the old poor. The working poor, the homeless poor, the invisible poor. And just when it risks becoming overly sentimental or even socially romantic, the invisible hand of the market strikes back.
In the first part of the evening, three performers explore the theme of “wealth” through movement patterns drawn from social dances, past and present. Statements by wealthy individuals overlay the choreography. In between, we follow wealth researcher Rudolf Martin through Hamburg in a series of video sequences.
The second part approaches the lives of poor people through ever-new perspectives and entirely different artistic means, revealing how poverty is systemically shaped and perpetuated.
ARME ARME REICHE REICHE brings together two pieces and a range of theatrical forms and methods to explore subtle differences—and to powerfully counter a looming sense of hopelessness and powerlessness with the proposition: another world is possible.
Choreography and direction: Vasna Aguilar, Henri Hüster
Text: Dagrun Hintze (REICHE REICHE), Sean Keller (ARME ARME)
Dramaturgy: Lena Carle
Stage and costumes: Chiara Mizaikoff
Composition: Florentin Berger-Monit & Johannes Wernicke
Performers: Raha Emami Khansari, Madeleine Lauw, Marco Merenda, Moné Sharifi (video)
Video: Mokhtar Namdar
Lighting design: Sönke Christian Herm
Artistic production assistance: Finn Vincent Longwitz
Costume co-development and realization (REICHE REICHE): Madlen Mamuzić
Costume realization (ARME ARME): Kim Lea Kaufmann
Funded by: Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg; Fonds Darstellende Künste (with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media); LICHTHOF Foundation
