HOW OUT LOUD is a modular performance project by STO Union built around a simple question: why does gathering matter?
At its centre is a one-person performance by Nadia Ross. Beginning with the question, “If this venue didn’t exist, would we build it now?”, Ross looks at the place in which the work is being presented, the people who use it, the art that happens there, and her own experience of belonging and not belonging in different places.
Blending documentary non-fiction with fiction, HOW OUT LOUD changes according to where it is performed. Architecture, local knowledge and the particular character of a venue become part of the work.
Everything changes — buildings, knowledge, our understanding of things. HOW OUT LOUD asks what can be found in the remnants after something you held to be true collapses.
At its smallest, HOW OUT LOUD can be presented as a stand-alone solo performance. At a larger scale, it becomes a modular event in which smaller multidisciplinary works are brought together around the central performance. Video, music, installation, live art and participatory works can be combined in different ways depending on the venue and context.
In this form, the audience is not required to experience the work in a single prescribed order. Different pieces offer different ways into the larger question, and the public can move through the space and make its own connections.
HAU: OUT LOUD
In September 2022, STO Union created HAU: OUT LOUD, a large-scale version of the project for HAU1 at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin.
The historic HAU1 theatre, built in 1908, became the subject as well as the site of the work. STO Union asked how a pre-internet theatre building might function in a world transformed by the pandemic, digital life and social division.
The building was filled with a constellation of works including documentary videos, live music, installation, participatory activities, an artificial-intelligence ritual and the central performance by Nadia Ross. Audiences could move freely through the building and choose their own path through the event.
At intervals, the building shifted from an open, roaming environment back into a theatre: audiences took their seats and the central performance began. Afterward, the larger event resumed and the audience was free to wander again.
HAU: OUT LOUD was presented September 23–25, 2022 at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin.
A STO Union production in co-production with HAU Hebbel am Ufer.
HAU: OUT LOUD — PROJECTS
The HAU configuration included:
- the central HOW OUT LOUD performance
- the OUT LOUD documentary video works
- the A.I. Ritual, created with UKAI Projects
- Frequencies, live sound works
- visual and participatory works distributed throughout HAU1
- drawings and audience-response activities developed specifically for the venue
The HAU configuration also included the video Love Songs for Old Venues and the puppet video Hyperindividualism. Learn more about Love Songs for Old Venues and Hyperindividualism.
HAU: OUT LOUD — CREDITS
Concept, direction and performance: Nadia Ross
Stage manager, in-house technical director and creative collaborator: Robert Scott
Technical director: J. Christian Gagnon
Lighting design: Sebastian Zamponi
Video: Nadia Ross
Set design: STO Union
Sound and music composition — videos and “sound wash”: Claire Bestland
Performance costume design: Andy Tait
Production manager: Nadia Ross
Production assistant: Renée Richard
Tour and financial management: Shauna Kadyschuk
OUT LOUD video participants: Rita Jain, Ruth Salmon, Hélène Debanné Labiche, Randolph McMillan, Michael McKinnell, Lauren Maryke McCarron, James Wearne, Ilse Turnsen, Ingrid Snydal, Kerri Hodgins, Jill Rick, Agnes Krischel, Michael Clarke, Margery Leach and Renée Richard
A.I. Ritual: UKAI Projects
Development: Dan Tapper
Berlin A.I. technicians: Jerrold McGrath and Willem Deisinger
Postcard: Allie Gattor
Drawings of HAU1: Tania Al Kayyali
Hyperindividualism (by Frozen Grapes)
Lyrics and performance: Jeffrey Ferguson
Music, instruments and production: Chris Hopkins
Mastered at Studio Cimetière by Mike Dubue
Video: Nadia Ross and Rob Scott
Puppet and costume: Vannessa Passmore, Eddie “Chance” Ironwood and Heidi Honegger
Set and props: cj fleury and Rob Scott
STO Union acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the participation of the Government of Canada.
