Committing herself on a global scale, dance director Helena Waldmann is going to cross boarders once again, this time with «Good Passports Bad Passports». Following her sensational dance piece «Made in Bangladesh» on the economic parallels between factory workers in the Bangladeshi garment industry and artists in the West, her new production shows the connection between national borders and the longing for closed communities.

It is a piece for two companies – one contemporary dance company, one from the world of nouveau cirque. They are separated by a wall made of human beings. These people who are cast locally represent the border. The border defines the company, it limits the freedom of movement. In contrast to information, goods and money, people without good passports are not allowed to cross the border. Instead, information, goods and currencies cement the attributions of others – in a world divided by nations.

The choreography uses the means of theatre to visualize the mechanisms of this seclusion. Helena Waldmann chose the title «Good Passports Bad Passports» because you can associate the one or the other company with countries like Afghanistan or Syria where territorial conflicts have made the value of their passports plummet, whereas the other company could be Europe, Canada or the USA whose passports enjoy the highest reputation and guarantee practically complete freedom of movement to their holders.

«Good Passports Bad Passports» is a deliberate cross-border project that involves seven co-producing theaters in Switzerland, Luxemburg and Germany and will tour internationally. It is meant to prompt a debate on how we take our borders for granted and how nationalism stops people almost unwittingly to make free choices and think outside the „closed shop“.


a production by Helena Waldmann and ecotopia dance productions

in coproduction with Theater im Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen (D), Hessisches Staatsballett im Rahmen von Tanzplattform Rhein-Main, ein Projekt des Hessischen Staatsballetts im Staatstheater Darmstadt und Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden und Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt (D), Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg (L), Colours International Dance Festival Stuttgart (D), Kaserne Basel (CH), Kurtheater Baden (CH), Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf (D), Tafelhalle Nürnberg (D)

supported by the Committee for Dance and Theatre of the cantons Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft

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