Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

“If I were to see me amongst a group of other dapper characters, how would I describe myself? The one with the brown hair? The one who dresses well? The one with a moustache smoking a pipe? No, I would describe myself as the one who laughs. The one who likes to laugh, the one who is often seen laughing.”

What can one do if, after all statements, actions and good intentions, a solution is still not in sight? Can we then only laugh at the misery that awaits? German-born Antonia Baehr does not look at laughter humorously, but clinically: she studies the sound, rhythm, volume, and movement of laughter, without taking the jokes or situations leading up to the laughter into account. Despite this dry approach, her bursts of laughter are so catchy that you cannot watch them unmoved. Even though Baehr’s piece does not intend to make you laugh, the funny effect it has on the audience is an inescapable by-product.

Baehr started working on her performance Lachen (‘laughing’) by asking family members and friends for a very special birthday present: she asked them to write a score for laughter of 5 to 15 minutes long. In the first part of the performance Baehr interprets these laughter scores and performs the compositions that have sprouted from them. In the second part she plays LPs with recorded laughter sequences, which she then proceeds to dissect as she elaborates on them. To prepare the piece Baehr organized a three-day laugh workshop in Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers in France. Three instructors – a yoga teacher, a clown, and an artist – showed the participants how they could best laugh. In Vooruit she will give a workshop under the title ‘Het atelier van de lach’ (The workshop of laughter). In the meantime, the book Rire / Laugh / Lachen was published. Apart from documentation material on Baehr’s work, it contains laughter scores, texts and interviews. The book will be on sale in Vooruit during the game is up.

Antonia Baehr is a choreographer, director, performer and filmmaker. Apart from that, she also frequently works with different artists, most of them hailing from her hometown Berlin. Her creations do not only have an interdisciplinary character, but also break through and neutralize or turn around male and female identity. In Larry Peacock, a musical performance with electro pop, she questioned artistic genres and the idea of gender, as she toys with the live aspect of theatre and the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience. Besides her work under her own name, Baehr also operates under 3 male alter egos: dancer and horse whisperer Werner Hirsch, musician and choreographer Henri Fleur and composer Henry Wilt.