Annemarie Arzberger
dreamed awake

Annemarie Arzberger’s lush, detailed, and often bizarre imagery, in which numerous creatures and their stories come to life, combines drawing, painting, and, for several years now, the construction of movable puppets that are used in performances. For HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, she is developing her own piece for the first time, combining physical and puppet theater, dance, lip-syncing, music, and spoken theater, with herself as the central figure. In the tradition of a long artistic and artisanal engagement with puppetry, Arzberger uses the medium as a space of transformation between object and subject, dream and reality, in order to performatively act out psychological states and childlike imagination. Since the pandemic, puppets and costumes have had a strong influence on her work and have become protagonists in an increasingly theatrical practice that addresses social issues while creating a dreamlike world of refuge. In her play wachgeträumt (dreamt awake), a three-part setting emerges in an imaginary spaceship — Schlouflaboar, Houloudeck, and Space-Grotten-Disco — which she performs with her sister, accompanied musically by Manuel Obriejtan. Characters such as the pain-stricken Dolores or the four highly sensitive Angst sisters unfold an immersive scene in subdued light, between semi-transparent tulle, detailed paintings, and DIY-like arrangements. The result is a poetic, playful, and at the same time disturbing world in which Arzberger transforms the supposedly childish medium of puppet theater into an unusual artistic visual language.

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