Show

Martin Zimmermann

Goodbye Johnny

Goodbye Johnny by Martin Zimmermann and musician Han Sue Lee Tischhauser is a homage to everything on the fringes of society. A shrill, rock-music driven collection of wonderfully humorous moments spiked with tongue-in-cheek references to our own absurd times.

The setting, time and reality of this piece are in constant flux, just as our gaze and memory keep adjusting. Goodbye Johnny revolves around how the marginalized, the disadvantaged, the injured are simultaneously excluded and put on display. The confrontation with this is hard to bear. Do I have to face what I'm seeing, can't I just continue on my way and forget? Sensation and irritation also appear simultaneously, because the switch from normality to exclusion happens quickly and is intense. But what does it really feel like to live in in Johnny's world? Goodbye Johnny creates an experience that allows us to oscillate between different emotional states.

Trailer

Photos: Augustin Rebetez, Nelly Rodriguez

  • For children and grownups as of 12

Concept, direction, choreography, costumes Martin Zimmermann
Created and interpreted by Martin Zimmermann, Han Sue Lee Tischhauser
Musical composition Han Sue Lee Tischhauser
Dramaturgy Sabine Geistlich
Set design Martin Zimmermann, Simeon Meier
Set construction Ingo Groher, Andi Hohl
Lighting design Sarah Büchel
Seamstress/wardrobe assistant Susanne Boner
Choreographic assistance Dimitri Jourde, Romain Guion
Sound Andy Neresheimer
Technical management Sarah Büchel
Communication MZ Atelier & Manuela Schlumpf
Accounting Conny Heeb
Administration, diffusion Alain Vuignier
International producer Claire Béjanin

Martin Zimmermann is Associated Artist at Tanzhaus Zürich and is supported by City of Zurich Culture, Department of Culture of the Canton of Zurich and Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council. He is also Associated Artist at maisondelaculture de Bourges / Scène Nationale.

Martin Zimmermann

The choreographer, theater director, stage designer and performer Martin Zimmermann (b. 1970), grew up in the small Swiss village of Wildberg and, after an apprenticeship as a set designer, graduated from the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC) in Paris. For more than 25 years, he has been inventing, choreographing and staging visual and physical theater without words, whose mixture of contemporary circus, dance, theater and spectacular stage installations inspires a large audience. Making art accessible to all and campaigning for more inclusion and diversity are issues that are particularly close to his heart. For his plays, he creates bizarre and strange worlds in which everyday objects are shifted into parallel, often absurd worlds. He breaks with convention, reveals the invisible, makes the improbable appear true and encourages the audience to think in new ways. The core of his work is the dialogue between the human body and objects with a life of their own, which allows them to meet and interact with each other in unstable and threatening environments. The human being in all its complexity is at the center of his interest. In 2021, Martin Zimmermann received the highest Swiss theater award, the prestigious Grand Prix Darstellende Künste / Hans-Reinhart-Ring 2021.

Dates / Booking